Annual ridership of the New York City Subway 2014-2023
In 2022, the number of passengers who entered the New York City Subway system amounted to almost 1.2 billion, a year-over-year increase of around 14 percent. During the same year, the busiest station of the subway network, serving 54.3 million passengers, was Time Square-42nd Street, located under Times Square and the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Midtown Manhattan.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA)
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) is the corporation responsible for public transit in the New York City metropolitan area and is the largest transit authority in the United States. The MTA operates a commuter rail service combined with local and express bus lines, a bus rapid transit system, and the NYC Subway. Prior to the pandemic, the MTA transported approximately 2.6 billion passengers, of which around 66 percent traveled on the underground network. In 2020, MTA ridership suffered a considerable decrease of almost 63 percent compared to the previous year, falling to 960 million paid passengers amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Passenger numbers rose to 1.3 billion in 2022, but ridership remained low compared to pre-pandemic figures.
U.S. public transportation
From coast to coast, the public transit networks in the United States move billions of passengers every year. In 2020 alone, the number of people transported by public transportation amounted to 9.9 billion. A year later, transit ridership dropped sharply to 4.6 billion passengers, a year-on-year decrease of 53.2 percent directly corresponding with the movement and travel restrictions imposed by the federal and state governments. By 2023, the number of passenger trips had recovered to 7.11 billion, which was still 28 percent below levels in 2019.
