clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

NYC Subway Broke Its Single-Day Ridership Record In October

New, 31 comments

We all know the subway is crowded, but this is something else: October 29 was the single highest day for subway ridership since the MTA began keeping track in the 1980s, with more than 6.2 million straphangers riding the rails that day—6,217,621, to be exact. That's 50,000 more people than on the last record-breaking day, October 30, 2014.

According to the New York Daily News, October was overall a record month for the subway system: There were more than 15 days that month when single-day ridership went above 6 million people, and average weekend ridership was higher than it has been in 45 years. And, according to the MTA's release, "approximately 80,000 more customers rode the subway on an average October 2015 weekday than just a year earlier—enough to fill more than 50 fully-loaded subway trains." So if you feel like you're constantly being smushed into a car on your morning commute…that's why.

In the same statement, MTA chairman Thomas Prendergast said, "Our challenge is to maintain and improve the subways even as growing ridership puts more demands on the system." Now that the MTA actually has a funding plan (albeit a not-so-great one), let's just hope they can actually keep up with it, eh?
· MTA New York City Transit Records Highest Modern One-Day Subway Ridership [Official]
· Subway ridership hit 6.2M one-day record in October [NYDN]