Metro ridership across the world was heavily affected by COVID-19. Of the top 10 busiest metros in 2019, New York lost close to two thirds of passenger volume in 2020. This was the biggest drop excluding Delhi, which was closed for over five months in 20202 . In other cities of the top 10, the drop in ridership was at least 27%, except in Shenzhen (-13%). The particularly high increase of the size of Shenzhen’s network (by one third) that year may partially explain the relatively small drop.
Annual ridership went down globally by 40% between 2019 and 2020. The region most impacted was North America (-63%). The decrease was somewhere between 45% and 50% in Europe, Latin America and MENA3 . The least affected regions were Asia-Pacific (-32%) and Eurasia (-39%).
Source: International Association of Public Transport (UITP)
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I wonder how much higher NYC subway ridership (I take it all the time!) would be if they upgraded it....because it's 118 years old.