How much of pre-pandemic transit ridership has come back, and how much does it vary between cities?
Bottom line: As of full-year 2024, US public transit ridership had recovered to about 78.6% of its 2019 (pre-pandemic) level, computed directly from FTA National Transit Database (NTD) monthly ridership data: 7.62 billion unlinked passenger trips (UPT) in 2024 vs. 9.70 billion in 2019. APTA's own headline figure, which extrapolates for late/non-reporting agencies, runs a few points higher — roughly 81% for calendar 2024 and about 85% by late 2025.
Recovery varies enormously by city and system. Among the 88 major agencies with more than 10 million 2019 trips, recovery ranges from under 45% up to over 90%, with a standard deviation of about 16.5 percentage points around a mean of 76.6%.
Recovery by major metro agency (2019 → 2024 unlinked passenger trips)
| Agency (metro) | 2019 trips | 2024 trips | % of 2019 |
|---|---|---|---|
| NJ Transit | 267.5M | 228.5M | 85.4% |
| MTA Long Island Rail Road | 114.2M | 97.2M | 85.1% |
| LA Metro | 373.7M | 313.9M | 84.0% |
| MTA New York City Transit | 3,462.6M | 2,902.0M | 83.8% |
| Miami-Dade Transit | 102.1M | 85.2M | 83.4% |
| WMATA (Washington DC) | 364.8M | 284.5M | 78.0% |
| SF Muni | 219.3M | 165.8M | 75.6% |
| MBTA (Boston) | 366.3M | 262.2M | 71.6% |
| SEPTA (Philadelphia) | 310.3M | 213.7M | 68.9% |
| King County Metro (Seattle) | 128.7M | 88.6M | 68.9% |
| CTA (Chicago) | 455.7M | 309.2M | 67.8% |
| RTD (Denver) | 105.2M | 64.3M | 61.1% |
| MARTA (Atlanta) | 114.8M | 66.4M | 57.8% |
| BART (SF Bay Area) | 127.6M | 56.1M | 44.0% |
At the extremes: Puerto Rico's transit authority (San Juan) is at just 7% of 2019 ridership (service cuts/infrastructure disruption, not just demand); several smaller/mid-sized systems (Tucson, Albany's CDTA, Kansas City, Spokane) have fully recovered or exceeded 2019 ridership. This matches APTA's finding that cities under 100,000 population had recovered to about 88% of 2019 levels by 2024/25, well ahead of the largest metros (78% for cities over 500,000, 81% for cities over 2 million).
Why the variation is systematic, not random
- Mode mix drives most of the gap. Nationally, bus UPT is at 82.6% of 2019 and rail UPT is at 74.8% (ferry 82.1%). Rail- and commuter-rail-heavy agencies (BART, MARTA, Chicago's Northeast Illinois Regional Commuter Railroad at 57.0%, SoCal's Metrolink at 40.0%) lag; bus-dominant systems recover faster because bus ridership skews toward essential workers, students, and non-commute trips that were never as disrupted.
- Downtown office commuting hasn't fully returned, but that's no longer the whole story. Office occupancy has been roughly flat through 2025 even as national ridership climbed toward 81–85% — growth increasingly comes from non-commute trips (errands, leisure, off-peak travel), not the 9-to-5 commute these systems were built around.
- City-specific catalysts matter. NYC subway ridership got an extra boost in 2025 from congestion pricing (an estimated 90M+ additional subway rides in its first year), pushing NYCT toward ~85% by late 2025; DC's WMATA has been helped by federal return-to-office mandates.
Methodology notes
- Computed from
transport.transit_ridership(FTA NTD Complete Monthly Ridership, with FTA's own adjustments/estimates for late reporters), aggregated to full-year unlinked passenger trips per agency and by mode, 2019 vs. 2024 (the most recent full year with finalized annual totals across nearly all major agencies; 2025 is complete in this table but treated as still-maturing). - Cross-checked against APTA's published national and city-size-tier recovery figures and against independent reporting on NYC, BART/Bay Area, Chicago, Boston, LA, Seattle, and Atlanta — all consistent within a few points, validating the NTD-derived numbers.
- Standard deviation (16.5 pts) and mean/median (76.6% / 77.5%) computed across the 88 agencies with >10M 2019 trips; smaller agencies show even wider variation (7%–120%+).
Full report and dashboard
Published via the connector: US transit ridership has recovered to about 78.6% of 2019 levels nationally, but ranges from 44% (BART) to over 90% depending on the city and system (local report link, not reachable outside this machine — dashboard image saved alongside this file as dashboard.png)
Sources
- askamerica connector:
transport.transit_ridership(FTA National Transit Database, Complete Monthly Ridership) - APTA Public Transportation Ridership Update, April 2026
- APTA: US transit ridership up to 85% of pre-pandemic levels — Mass Transit
- MTA subway/bus ridership 2024
- A bumpy ride: Bay Area post-pandemic transit recovery — Local News Matters
- Congestion pricing and NYC subway ridership — amNY