MTA ridership highest in 62 years: Officials

MTA ridership hit a 62-year high last year, despite Superstorm Sandy shutting down the system, the agency said Monday.

The MTA saw more than 2.6 billion trips along the subways, buses, railroads and other services in 2012, MTA said Monday.

The largest increase in rides were on the subway, which had 13.7 million more trips in 2012 than in 2011, an increase of about 0.8%. Subway annual ridership broke a record with 1.654 billion trips, the highest also in 62 years.

"MTA ridership has been growing for 20 years, and this positive trend reflects New York state's improving economy and continuing improvements to the MTA's services," said interim MTA chief Fernando Ferrer.

"As the MTA has rescued the system from the days of graffiti and breakdowns, riders have continued to come back," Ferrer said.

Interim MTA Executive Director Thomas Prendergast added that increasing ridership of "the younger 'millennial' generation" also contributed to the uptick.

The MTA Bus company, which was formed between 2004-06, saw the highest percentage jump, with ridership rising about 1.2% last year over 2011. The Metro-North, meanwhile. had its second-highest ridership in history with about 83 million rides in 2012.

Still, the MTA estimated that it lost about 49.7 million trips when systems were shut down because of Sandy, with some 43.8 million lost from the subway, 2.4 million from the LIRR, 1.8 million from Metro-North, 1.6 million on the MTA Bus Company and 100,000 from the Staten Island Railway.

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MTA ridership last year hit a 62-year high. Here are the percentage changes for each MTA service from 2011 to 2012:

Subway: 13.7 million more rides from 2011 to 2012, up about 0.8%
NYC Transit Buses: 3.07 million fewer rides, down about 0.5%
MTA Bus Company: 1.45 million more rides, up about 1.2%
Metro-North: 916,000 more rides, up about 1.1%
LIRR: 763,000 more rides,up about 0.9%
Staten Island Railway: 138,000 fewer rides, down about 3.0%

(Tim Herrera)