The MTA just announced that ridership on subways and buses increased by more than 213,000 since the city began reopening on Monday.
For the subway specifically, ridership reached the 800,000 marker on Monday, June 8 for the first time since before the pandemic began. Subway ridership was recorded at 800,664, and even just a week ago, on June 1, it was at 686,869.
That still only equates to 15% of normal ridership since one year ago, but signals that the city is starting to return somewhat to normalcy. It was at its highest point between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. in Manhattan, increasing 20% during that time from the week before.
“Day one of Phase 1 was a good day for New York City Transit with more customers safely returning to the system and widespread mask compliance,” said Sarah Feinberg, Interim President of New York City Transit.
“We continue our unprecedented 24/7 disinfecting effort to make our system cleaner and safer than it has ever been and we are providing more than 2 million masks to those who need it in addition to making hand sanitizer available across the system. We ask our customers to continue following public health guidance to keep yourself and your fellow riders healthy. We look forward to gradually welcoming additional customers back to our system.”
The system continues to shut down from 1 to 5am so every component can be disinfected every 24 hours. Since that initiative was put in place, the MTA says subway cars have been cleaned over 220,000 times and all 472 subway stations have been cleaned over 71,000 times. Buses have gone through more than 184,000 cleaning cycles.
As for what riding the subway now looks like? Check out these eye-opening photos.
featured image source: Marc A. Hermann / MTA New York City Transit