Subway and bus ridership for 2019

In a normal year, farebox revenue accounts for about half of the MTA’s annual budget, or about $8 billion.

In 2019, unlike transit systems in other parts of the country, our ridership increased. In fact, 2019 was the first year that subway ridership stopped declining since 2015. This money has been crucial to improvements we've been making throughout the system to make your transit more reliable.

This upward trend in ridership continued in January and February of 2020, with both months outpacing January and February in 2019. However, due to the coronavirus pandemic, our ridership has plummeted. We're glad people are heeding the advice of public health officials and staying home when they can. However, the scale of the deficit is unprecedented. We asked for federal support not only so that we can continue operating through the crisis, but also so that transit can continue to serve as a catalyst for economic growth. 

We operate the largest public transportation agency in North America and one of the largest in the world. The subway has a daily ridership of approximately 5.5 million and an annual ridership in 2019 of roughly 1.698 billion.

Our system includes: 

• More than 6,600 subway cars, which collectively traveled about 365 million miles in 2019
• 472 subway stations
• 665 miles of track
• 5,927 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

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 2019.

In our spreadsheet, stations are listed alphabetically by borough, and the rankings are by 2019 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 highlighted in blue; click the station name 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 subways ridership data.

About our bus data

At the end of 2019, the MTA Bus and New York City Transit bus system had 234 local, 20 Select Bus Service and 73 express routes. Starting August 18, 2018, the Staten Island Express Bus network was redesigned to bring faster and more direct service.  

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.

For example:

• The S48 and S98 both run along Forest Avenue in Staten Island. The S48 makes all local stops, and the S98 makes limited stops.
• The Bx40 and Bx42 both run along Tremont Avenue in the Bronx; the Bx40 eastern terminal is at Fort Schuyler, and the Bx42 eastern terminal is on Harding Avenue.

The “systemwide adjustment” accounts for miscellaneous ridership not allocated by route and should be added to the route totals to match the official systemwide ridership shown in the table above.

Download our data for NYCT bus ridership and MTA Bus company ridership.