March ridership, fare revenue less than expected

As the U.S. economy continued to struggle and shed jobs this spring, the MTA ridership numbers and the agency’s projected revenue suffered in turn. According to today’s Post, New York City lost 86,400 jobs in March, and MTA subway ridership levels were at 2.5 million fewer trips than expected. As such, the authority lost out on around $7.1 million in projected revenue.

Overall for 2009, ridership levels were down by nearly 4.7 million rides for the first three months of the year as compared to 2008. This decline has led to a budget gap of slightly less than 1.5 percent, as the economy is not expected to rebound fully until 2010, the authority should probably not expect an uptick in these figures for 2009.