NY: Subway Ridership Hits 65-Year High

[marmar]

Subway Ridership Hits 65-Year High

Monday, March 24, 2014 - 10:46 AM
WNYC

By Kate Hinds


[font size="1"]The Bedford Avenue L station in Williamsburg, Brooklyn (Kellan/flickr)[/font]


More people rode New York City's subways last year than any time since 1949 — and Brooklyn is one of the reasons for the boom.

It had the largest borough-wide average weekday ridership increase, with the L, F and G lines all experiencing substantial growth.

The MTA says last year's subway ridership of 1.7 billion was the highest since 1949, and weekday ridership of 5.5 million was the highest since 1950.

Bus ridership showed a bit of rebound in 2013 after five years of flat numbers. Annual ridership had been hovering around 120 million since 2008, but that number jumped to 125 million people last year. ...................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.wnyc.org/story/subway-ridership-hits-65-year-high/

[yeoman6987]

1. Good and bad

It is good that public transportation is getting a revival. But is it that people are not walking to places as much as before. That would be a shame if that is the reason. Keep in mind very few in New York have cars that they drive to in the city. Of course they may have one that they drive on vacation or business outside the city. My point being is that I hope the change in ridership is not at the expense of walking.

[sir pball]

2. If I had to guess, it's the the flight from Manhattan.

The rents here are approaching crisis level - even very well off financial and professional types are realizing that you can get twice the apartment for half the price across the East River, even the super-fancy luxury stuff; I've seen more than a few ads for high-end buildings in Long Island City and Downtown Brooklyn over the last couple years. I'll probably end up out there after this lease, $1550 for a studio is utterly laughable and it's only going to get worse.

It might also explain why the service and reliability is on the downswing; it's not as bad as the dark days before Gunn, but it's been slipping lately. My line's in the middle of a nine-day downage now, after a broken rail just last week.