The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) today announced that the New York City Subway, Long Island Rail Road, and Metro-North Railroad all achieved pandemic ridership records on May 14, with 2,265,489 trips on the New York City subway, 104,885 on the Long Island Rail Road, and 85,684 on Metro-North Railroad that day. These figures mark the highest single-day ridership totals for those agencies since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic for both commuter railroads and the subway system.

Nearly 1.2 million customers rode the bus on May 14, with the 1,188,284 ridership total not far off from the pandemic high of 1,245,629 from May 6. Altogether, more than 3.4 million riders used New York City Transit’s subways and buses on Friday.

Prior to the pandemic, average weekday ridership totals routinely exceeded 5.5 million in the subway system. That figure fell by more than 90% to a low of roughly 300,000 daily trips last April as the number of COVID-19 cases peaked in the New York City area. The low point of bus ridership was 278,000 on Sunday, April 12, 2020. Average weekday subway ridership in April 2020 was 463,763. MTA employees continued to provide service for the frontline healthcare professionals and other essential workers who needed to get to work during some of the most difficult days in New York City history.

-via Press Release