After taking a month off from committee meetings in February, the MTA board is back with a vengeance this month. The committees meet later this morning, and this month’s board books are chock full of information. Highlights include some capital projects timelines and an expansion of the “On The Go” kiosk project that I’ll cover later. One number though jumped out at me, and it’s a number that tells us how truly impactful the subways are.
Despite Superstorm Sandy shuttering the subway system for a few days, the MTA is reporting 5.379 million daily weekday subway riders for 2012. That figure represents a 1.8 percent increase over 2011 and is a near-record high. Weekend ridership is up even more with Saturday and Sunday averaging a combined total of 5.662 million riders for an increase over 2011 of three percent. Even local bus service ridership — which had been in free fall for a while — increased by almost one percent. All told, over 8.5 million riders use an MTA bus, subway or commute rail option each weekday.
It’s hard to overstate the importance of that figure. Each day, the equivalent of every resident in New York City takes a trip on some form of public transportation. Most people use the subways, but the bus ridership figures are strong as well. PATH, Metro-North and the LIRR account for over 800,000 combined daily trips. Imagine the city’s economy with no transit system; imagine the area’s congestion without public transportation.
One of the clear factors driving transit usage is employment. As the MTA’s board books have shown, transit ridership trends closely track employment — with some caveats. When employment is up, transit ridership is up as well. When employment is down, transit ridership has been too. “Subway ridership is correlated with employment levels,” the MTA said. “However, subway ridership has performed much better than employment with much faster growth in ridership than jobs, especially from 2003 to 2008.”
Chief among the drivers — especially during lean employment times — of transit ridership is the relative cost. Despite a steady stream of fare hikes over the last few years, it’s still much, much cheaper to use transit than it is to drive, and it likely always will be. Unemployed New Yorkers who have to get around will eschew costly car trips in favor of a subway ride, and thus, outside of truly calamitous economic times, ridership will generally always increase.
Yet, despite these astronomical numbers and despite the ever-increasing ridership figures, it’s a struggle to realize gains for transit riders. The five million New Yorkers who need the subway every day are, in one sense, an untapped political constituency often invisible in the eyes of those who represent us in City Hall and Albany. (That invisibility is, incidentally, what the Riders Alliance is trying to change.)
Maybe it’s because of the historical and social attitudes toward transit ridership that is viewed as not even second class. Maybe it’s because of the perceived and real inept experiences we’ve all had with the MTA. Maybe it’s a combination of both. But somehow, the millions of people who need the subway and the city and state economy that relies on these people can’t get no respect.
Despite a fare hike this year and another planned for 2015, ridership will continue to increase as the city’s population grows and as jobs continue to come back. Will anyone in Albany notice or will we just marvel at the ridership numbers while long-term investment in the system remains an ever-elusive goal?
32 comments
So subway ridership is actually higher on weekends than on weekdays? I would not have guessed that. It feels like one of those things that you can convince yourself is possible, but still feels like it shouldn’t be true.
Weekend ridership = Saturday + Sunday ridership.
if i have to go to manhattan on the weekends i will usually take the LIRR or the subway so i don’t have to drive in. some of the trains are very packed, mostly shoppers.
on the weekdays ridership fluctuates. I think the middle of the week has less people because a lot of people telecommute now
Total weekend ridership ? average weekday ridership.
? is equivalent to “less than or equal to”. I can’t post that character, sorry.
Part of it is I think we’ve gotten far enough past the ‘bad old days” on the subway now that you have a whole class of young adults in the city who see no problem with using the subway not just for work travel, but for leisure travel, and well into the wee hours of the morning, as the crowds on the L or the 1 trains after midnight will show. It would be nice if the MTA could come up with a by-the-hour breakdown of ridership — you wouldn’t have any exact numbers from the pre-Metrocard era, but even over the last 15 years since the card has become the de facto way to access the system, I would guess whatever percentage increases in ridership during normal daytime hours has probably been dwarfed by the spike in off-hours ridership, as the perception of the subway (or at least the vast majority of it) being safe 24/7/365 has taken hold among younger city residents.
Only 5.662 riders on weekends? How do you get 0.662 of a rider?
The number is in millions. 5.662 million combined weekend riders. That means that more than half of a typical workday total is experienced on Saturday and Sunday – and that is despite reduced service and maintenance closures.
You weren’t reading the passage, were you? It said 5.662 million total riders, combined. That’s 5,662,000 riders, to put in perspective.
Please help us, Ben. You’re our only hope.
Heaven help me.
This is why we need the MTA to push for new routes – connecting the Queens line to JFK via the old LIRR RoW, and using the old LIRR Bay Ridge route to connect lines in Brooklyn & Queens to unserved parts of SE Brooklyn. Even start planning a tunnel to Staten Island from 86th St & 4th Ave in Brooklyn.
We need some vision to keep the city growing and vibrant!
We need to make some new routes for the NYC subway. We need to start planning new construction in the outer boroughs (like a 7 extension to Bayside) to support a projected yield of 7 million daily riders by 2035.
Thoroughly supported. There are a handful of hinterlands that deserve to be connected to the mass-transit system.
Agreed. One such area is Eastern Queens. The MTA should strongly consider building a subway line there.
I agree with you, and I don’t even live in Queens. But a minority viewpoint, judging from the posts here.
Or the LIRR could take a page from RER or S-Bahn and ramp up service on Port Washington, Atlantic, Hempstead and Far Rockaway Lines.
To understand NY politics, it pays to think in terms of three classes — the executive/financial class, the political/union class, and the serfs.
The executive/financial class has become much richer relative to the serfs, in cash pay, in large part because they set each other’s pay in mutual backscratching deals. At first, during the stock market bubble of the 1990s, this soaring share of pay was justified by soaring “value” created for investors. But when the bubble deflated, pay at the top did not — it continued to increase even as the pay of the serfs continued to fall behind inflation. In fact, the riches of the rich have only been made possible by soaring public and private debts, because otherwise they would not be able to sell more to the serfs while paying them less. The one percent are a de facto union, and their pay is non-market pay.
The political/union class has become much richer relative to the serfs, mostly in retirement benefits (but also cash pay), in large part because the set each other’s retirement benefits in mutual backscratching deals, mostly up in Albany. At first, during the stock market bubble, these rising retirement benefits were justified by rising investment returns, and claimed to cost the serfs nothing. But the deals for those cashing in and moving out go on, even as the serfs continue to lose income in retirement and the benefits for new public employees are slashed. To pay for those deals, the serfs are facing ever rising taxes and fees and cuts in public services and benefits. If the wages of the executive/financial class are ever cut to what they should be, and thus they pay less in tax, the serfs will be hit even harder.
The serfs, the vast majority, have seen their inflation-adjusted pay fall for 40 years. Their pay is set in the marketplace, take it or leave it, and has been squeezed by those who have choices to take their business across the street (or the world) or hire someone else. Or earn the minimum wage, which has lagged far behind inflation (and executive pay and public employee pensions). Many are immigrants and can’t vote, or don’t vote, or don’t vote until the general election, when there is generally only one real choice left on the ballot. Virtually none pay attention to legislative offices, which are permanent sinecures as long as those who hold them play ball with the executive/financial class and/or the political/union class.
The executive/financial class and the political union/class drive, or get driven. They get black cars, corporate parking spaces, or free parking on the street via placard. The serfs use mass transit, and ride bicycles.
The retroactive pension enrichments were not paid for, and the debts have piled up, so collectively the three classes are going to be less well off in the future than in the past. But who will take what proportion of the pain? I’d suggest the Russian proverb may be correct: “the shortage will be divided among the peasants.”
The executive/financial class is currently looting the political/union class (and looting various other obscure classes such as the academic class). The serfs don’t have any money left to loot.
The executive/financial class appears to loot *compulsively*, even when they already have more money than they know what to do with. They are *the problem*. The solution has been known for a long time: 92% tax rates (such as we had under Eisenhower) for the executive/financial class.
@LL
Public Statement Of Truth Violation. You have been selected for the next Two Minutes Hate.
Drone dispatch queued…
In my mind an accurate analysis but I don’t think the term “serfs” really works. Think think think.
Ben, I think you mean it’s hard to OVERstate the importance of the ridership number.
The ridership number means that aside from the people the media finds to kvetch every time the fare goes up, and the paid professional kvetchers, most people are increasingly happy with New York’s mass transit system. They vote with their feet.
And that is because the present situation of mass transit has gotten better. It is the future that has been sacrificed. People only become mobilized when those financial liabilities become real. And then those who benefitted from putting them in place blame the “evil MTA.”
Jerrold, do you believe that never making a single mistake like the one with the map will be sufficient to pay for the next MTA capital plan, getting rid of the payroll tax, ending the use of toll subsidies for mass transit, and putting in place a 20/50 pension? Or do you just want to believe it, like everyone else?
” most people are increasingly happy with New York’s mass transit system. They vote with their feet.”
Hmmm. Maybe. Or maybe the rising price of gas, the rising cost of tolls, the rising cost of parking, and the rising public consciousness about leaving a smaller carbon footprint, have all swayed public commuting habits toward mass transit.
But that’s a far cry from being “increasingly happy with”.
I know an engineer who was just assigned to a major Verrazano-Narrows bridge project with a field office on Staten Island. He lives up in Harlem and his first week of commuting involved the Battery Tunnel and the VNB. He projected that his tolls alone would run him well over $400/mo. He’s not reimbursed for tolls, and his company has suggested he move to Staten Island for the duration of the project. Repeatedly.
He doesn’t take the 1 Line to the ferry to the bus because he’s “happy”.
only a few wackos worry about their carbon footprint on a daily basis
how much carbon is generated pulling a mostly empty subway train at 2am?
Sane people get it down to the minimum that they can and stop worrying about their individual contribution and start worrying about the whole.
In the case of transit, empty vehicles are still supporting reduced carbon emissions by being available. The measure that matters for the system is the average amount per passenger-mile. Many people wouldn’t use the system if they couldn’t get home during an off-peak hour.
I don’t think that’s it. Not all of it anyway. A few observations:
– parking hasn’t gone up that much, and it’s often still well below market value. It could afford to go up a lot more. Same goes for traffic. (Maybe people are sick of these things, but they are hardly different from a generation ago.)
– I think this is key: WTF are people under 30 going to do? Gen Y cannot afford cars, much less cars in the suburbs. An apartment in a decent or meh part of NYC is a cheaper proposition than a cheaper apartment where you need a car. Gen Y revved places like Williamsburg up, and suburbs remain demesnes of NIMBYs who aren’t exactly about to accommodate increases in housing.
– demographics are different now. People like toying with handheld devices while they ride. Maybe that’s not a big deal, but it’s something; it certainly makes a more reliable ride to work worth considering if you can entertain yourself.
That said, Larry is probably onto something. People are liking transit better, to the point that car companies are worrying a little.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/l…..4L4xav9JxO
At least now we know how our fare increase money gets spent.
I know that the Post can be considered a sensational source,
but this story is on other websites as well.
This is the second thread in which you’ve posted this story, Jerrold. If you want to send me a tip, please email. Otherwise, once is enough.
I’m waiting on some additional information related to the story and will then post on it myself. Thanks.
Yet Real New Yorkers drive, you know. They have cars and they use them and, while kind, temperate, and generous, they cannot afford to continue subsidizing a dysfunctional transit system. True facts, all of them!
My car is only worth it if I’m venturing out into the non-transit parts of the world. Otherwise, the $50+ parking cost, or hour spent looking for street parking is a terrible drain on time/money when compared to a swipe from my monthly unlimited card.
The kind, temperate and generous New Yorkers who DON’T own or drive a car cannot afford to continue to subsidize a dysfunctional road system on which too many people want to cram too many polluting cars into too small an area on a daily basis.