Subway and bus ridership for 2020

Subway and bus ridership during the pandemic

2020 began with the continuation of 2019's upward trends in subway and bus ridership from January to early March.  Afterwards, the coronavirus outbreak and the consequent "New York State on PAUSE" executive order to close all non-essential business sent both subway and bus ridership to the unprecedented lowest point in April, when subway was at 8% of 2019 ridership and bus at 23%. Through several reopening phrases, subway ridership slowly recovered to 31% of 2019 ridership with bus at 50% by the end of Year 2020.

Overview of New York City's Transit System

We operate the largest public transportation agency in North America and one of the largest in the world. In 2020, the subway has daily ridership of approximately 2 million and an annual ridership of roughly 640 million.

Our system includes:

  • More than 6,400 subway cars, which collectively traveled about 325 million miles in 2020
  • 472 subway stations
  • 665 miles of track
  • 5,784 vehicles in our bus fleet, all 100% accessible to riders with disabilities
  • 234 local bus routes, 20 Select Bus Service routes, and 73 express routes in the five boroughs
     

How we calculate ridership

Subways

We include:

  • All passengers who enter the subway system, including passengers who transfer from buses.

We do not include:

  • Employees
  • Passengers who exit the subway
  • Passengers who transfer from other subway lines, with the exception of out-of-system transfers, where you use your MetroCard to make the transfer.
     

Buses

We include:

  • All passengers who board buses using a valid MetroCard, cash, transfer, Select Bus Service ticket, or student MetroCard

We do not include:

  • Employees
  • Non-revenue passengers (such as children under 44inches tall traveling with an adult)
  • B42 riders boarding inside the paid zone of the Rockaway Parkway subway station.

Note: To prevent virus spread, front door fare collections were suspended from March 22 to August 31, 2020 in local buses, and the ridership during this period were estimated with assistance of the Automatic Passenger Count (APC) devices mounted on approximately 40% of the bus fleet. The APC devices can effectively count boarding and alighting passengers.   
 

Average weekday, Saturday, and Sunday ridership includes every weekday, Saturday, and Sunday in the year, except major holidays and days when the subway system was closed or operated fare-free.

Average weekend ridership is the two-day sum of average Saturday plus average Sunday ridership. Ridership on major holidays (New Year's Day, Presidents Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas) is included only in the annual total.
 

Summary of subway ridership

Year

Average Weekday

Average Saturday

Average Sunday

Average Weekend

Annual Total

2015

5,650,610

3,309,731

2,663,418

5,943,149

1,762,565,419

2016

5,655,755

3,202,388

2,555,814

5,758,201

1,756,814,800

2017

5,580,845

3,156,673

2,525,481

5,682,154

1,727,366,607

2018

5,437,586

3,046,289

2,392,658

5,438,947

1,680,060,402

2019

5,493,875

3,087,043

2,407,152

5,494,195

1,697,787,002

2020

2,040,580

1,203,072

932,240

2,135,312

639,541,029

Top 10 busiest subway stations in 2020

Rank

Station/Complex

Lines

Ridership

1

Times Sq-42 St

N,Q,R,W,S,1,2,3,7,A,C,E

20,341,240

2

Grand Central-42 St

S,4,5,6,7

13,162,826

3

34 St-Herald Sq

B,D,F,M,N,Q,R,W

12,826,841

4

14 St-Union Sq

L,N,Q,R,W,4,5,6

10,830,712

5

Fulton St

A,C,J,Z,2,3,4,5

8,855,302

6

34 St-Penn Station

1,2,3

8,103,809

7

34 St-Penn Station

A,C,E

8,010,472

8

59 St-Columbus Circle

A,B,C,D,1

7,618,925

9

74-Broadway

7,E,F,M,R

7,523,538

10

Flushing-Main St

7

6,944,923

About our subway data

We have 472 stations, the largest number of public transit subway stations of any system in the world. Note that our table lists 424 stations. We combined ridership data for station complexes, where stations are connected by transfer passageways. (We can't accurately allocate ridership to each station in a complex.) For example, the 14 St A, C, E station is combined with the 8 Av L station.



The station names and lines stopping at each station reflect service at the end of 2020.



In our spreadsheet, stations are listed alphabetically by borough, and the rankings are by 2020 ridership. The "systemwide adjustment" accounts for miscellaneous ridership and other adjustments that are not allocated by station.



In our tables, stations that were temporarily closed (either fully or partially) are denoted with asterisks; go to the "Closures" tab for the closure dates. For these stations, zero ridership was included in the averages for any days when the station was closed, except for the days when the entire subway was closed or fare-free.

Download our subway ridership data



 

Summary of bus ridership

Year

Average Weekday

Average Saturday

Average Sunday

Average Weekend

Annual Total

2015

2,476,364

1,507,007

1,172,291

2,679,297

776,081,306

2016

2,445,320

1,447,143

1,131,484

2,578,627

764,030,270

2017

2,320,222

1,391,811

1,097,259

2,489,070

724,834,684

2018

2,204,222

1,347,377

1,038,949

2,386,326

690,809,514

2019

2,158,469

1,337,173

1,019,693

2,356,866

677,588,084

2020

1,187,416

804,220

631,714

1,435,934

382,424,444

Top 10 busiest bus routes in 2020

Rank

Route

Borough

Ridership

1

M15 Local/SBS

Manhattan

8,125,584

2

Bx12 Local/SBS

Bronx

7,905,359

3

B46 Local/SBS

Brooklyn

7,539,419

4

B6

Brooklyn

6,837,429

5

B44 Local/SBS

Brooklyn

6,689,127

6

B35

Brooklyn

5,965,165

7

Q58

Queens

5,942,436

8

B82 Local/SBS

Brooklyn

5,500,091

9

Bx19

Bronx

5,458,473

10

B41

Brooklyn

5,321,959

About our bus data

Local routes begin with one or two letters corresponding to the major borough of operation (B=Brooklyn, Bx=Bronx, M=Manhattan, Q=Queens, S=Staten Island). New York City Transit express routes begin with the letter "X", except for "SIM" used for express routes established under the Staten Island Express Bus Network Redesign.

MTA Bus express routes begin with "BM" for Brooklyn to Manhattan routes, "BxM" for Bronx to Manhattan routes, and "QM" for Queens to Manhattan routes. In the ridership averages, zero was included for any day during the year on which a given route did not operate, except for the days when the entire bus system was closed or fare-free. In the following tables, certain routes that effectively operate as a single route are combined.