And with NYC now in Phase 2, it will likely only go up from there.
The MTA just announced that on Friday, June 19, combined ridership on NYC subways & buses passed a whopping 2 million!
This is the highest it’s been since the pandemic started, and marks a big increase since the start of Phase 1. That being said, it’s still a huge 74% percent decrease from regular weekday riders before COVID-19 (on a regular weekday the MTA sees 7.6 million combined riders).
The main increase was in bus ridership, which passed 1 million for the first time on Friday. It’s still about half of what normal average weekday ridership is.
For the subway, it almost reached 985,000 on Wednesday, June 17; the normal daily ridership is about 5.5 million. The subway is running on regular service except for the closure for cleaning between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m.
Of course, these stats we accumulated before Phase 2 began on June 22, so figures will likely jump again throughout this week.
There are many safety regulations the MTA has put into place to prepare for the dramatic increase in riders, which you can read more about here. One of these is a face covering requirement for all riders. The MTA now says that mask compliance at 95%, and they will continue to distribute 2 million free masks throughout stations.
You can see more about the role of the MTA during Phase 2 of reopening here:
See also: The MTA Will Disinfect Subways With UV Lights Proven To Kill COVID-19
featured image source: Marc A. Hermann / MTA New York City Transit