Annual ridership of the New York City Subway 2014-2021

In 2021, the number of passengers who entered the New York City Subway system amounted to almost 760 million, a year-over-year increase of around 19 percent amid the COVID-19 pandemic. During the same year, the busiest station of the subway network, serving 29.5 million passengers, was Time Square-42^nd 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, from which around 66 percent traveled with 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.

U.S. public transportation

From coast to coast, the public transit networks in the United States move billions of passengers every year. In 2019 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. The severe reduction in consumers caused a financial slump that brought the transit agency’s upward revenue trend to a halt. In 2020, the total operating revenue of the U.S. public transportation sector plateaued year-on-year, amounting to 54.2 billion U.S. dollars.