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MTA posts record riders over Halloween, marathon week
By
Ramsey Khalifeh
Published Nov 3, 2026 at 3:18 p.m. ET
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By
Ramsey Khalifeh
Published Nov 3, 2026 at 3:18 p.m. ET
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It was a banner week for the New York City subway.
Last Thursday, 4.72 million people rode the subway, the most in a single day since the COVID pandemic shut the city down in 2020. The next day, the system saw its highest Friday ridership day since 2020 at 4.5 million.
On Halloween Saturday, 3.27 million riders got on the subway, the most on a Saturday since 2016. And during the New York City Marathon, the subway saw its highest Sunday ridership on record.
The numbers highlight the MTA’s continuing post-pandemic recovery as it has campaigned to get people back on the trains after lockdowns. The subway’s seven-day rolling average — which calculates the average daily ridership for each week — reached 4.19 million riders last week, its best week since the pandemic, MTA data shows.
Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a statement that the MTA’s investments in the system had paid off.
“From the streets to the subways, New Yorkers were on the move this weekend in record numbers,” Hochul said. “The subway is the lifeblood of our city and from Halloween to the marathon, the major events that make New York special simply would not be possible without mass transit.”
New York City Transit said it deployed additional subway service throughout the weekend in anticipation of the spike in straphangers. And it was needed: Videos posted to social media over Halloween showed massive crowds entering and exiting the West 4th Street subway station ahead of the popular Greenwich Village parade.
YUKI IWAMURA/AFP via Getty Images
Mass transit serving the tri-state area has also shown promising signs of recovering from pandemic-era lows in ridership. When New York celebrated the New York Knicks’ championship title with a ticker-tape parade through lower Manhattan on June 18, the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North Railroad service posted a post-pandemic ridership record of 369,482 and 302,486 riders, respectively.
The night the Knicks actually won the championship — just the week before on June 13, a Saturday — subway ridership was above 3 million riders and more New Yorkers got on the system after midnight than on the New Year’s Eve coming into 2026.
Danny Pearlstein, policy and communications director for transit advocacy group Riders Alliance, said the MTA’s strong numbers show the subway system remains the “bedrock that connects New Yorkers” and that continued investments are needed to sustain its heavy use.
The MTA is making billions in dollars of investments to improve the existing infrastructure of subways, buses and railroads through its five-year capital plan that will purchase hundreds of new subway cars, rehabilitate train repair yards and add modern signal systems.
The transit agency is also constructing the Second Avenue Subway, which will extend the Q line by three stations into East Harlem, and is in the design phase of the Interborough Express, a light rail line that will connect more than a dozen subway stations between Brooklyn and Queens.
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Politics
new york city
transportation
Ramsey Khalifeh
Ramsey Khalifeh is a transportation reporter on the NYC Accountability desk covering the largest transit system in the country. He was previously a general assignment reporter at Gothamist and worked on the Boston Globe's metro and copy desk. Got a tip? Email [email protected]
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