Governor Hochul Highlights Record-Breaking Year of Performance and Ridership for the MTA in 2025

Governor Kathy Hochul today announced that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) had a record-breaking year in 2025, with significant milestones reached for performance, reliability and ridership. The subway, Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North Railroad all recorded record-highs for On-Time Performance in 2025. Ridership also experienced strong growth in 2025: nearly 1.9 billion trips were taken on New York City Transit's subway, bus and paratransit services, up roughly seven percent from 2024.

"This is what happens when you invest in mass transit: better service, faster trips and increasing ridership, benefitting the entire region," Governor Hochul said. "2025 was a record-breaking year for the MTA and a great year for riders, who took almost two billion trips from Poughkeepsie to Patchogue and the Rockaways to Riverdale, powering the entire region. Transit is the lifeblood of New York, and in 2026, we will build on these results to continue improving service, saving New Yorkers precious time and powering our economy."

MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber said, "Four years ago, under Governor Hochul's leadership, the MTA set out ambitious goals to bring transit - and New Yorkers -- back from the pandemic by increasing and improving service and investing in our infrastructure. Thanks to the amazing MTA workforce and historic capital funding from Albany, we've been able to accomplish those goals-ridership, service, safety and modernizing and expanding our great but aging system. Promises made, promises kept. That's good government in action."

New York City Transit

2025 was a historic year for the subway system. Weekday and weekend On-Time Performance (OTP) reached the highest levels since electronic record-keeping was launched, excluding the pandemic period when 24/7 service was suspended. Weekday OTP in 2025 was 83.7 percent, a 2.1 percentage point improvement from 2024 and weekend OTP was 86.6 percent, 2.4 points better than 2024. In August, subway weekday OTP reached 85.2 percent, the best single month for performance in history.

This improvement in subway service was driven through increased focus on data-driven schedule and service management improvements; a drop in delays related to public conduct incidents; and improved schedules helping to mitigate the impacts of scheduled maintenance and capital work. The subway system experienced about 13,000 fewer delays in 2025 compared to the previous year, even with increases in regularly scheduled service. In 2025, the Department of Subways also increased service on several lines, including the A and L in November, and the M in December in conjunction with the F/M swap.

Subway ridership grew substantially in 2025, with nearly 1.3 billion total trips, up seven percent from 2024. Subway ridership continued its post-pandemic recovery, with total trips in 2025 up nearly 30 percent from 2022 and at 85 percent of pre-pandemic levels. The subway broke its post-pandemic single-day weekday and weekend ridership records on numerous occasions in 2025, with the most-recent single day high reached on December 11 with 4.65 million customers.

On buses, the MTA has added additional service across the city in 2025. Following the launch of congestion pricing, the MTA and Governor Hochul committed $8 million from the Outer Borough Transportation Account to increase frequencies on 22 high-ridership bus routes, including 8 Express Bus routes connecting riders to Manhattan and 14 critical Local Bus routes, reducing wait times for riders. In June and September, the MTA phased in the Queens Bus Network Redesign, which included a $35 million annual investment in increased all-day frequency, 11 brand new bus routes and 25 new Rush Routes, which have sped up trips by seven percent.

Systemwide, bus speeds, customer journey time performance, and service delivered were all improved in 2025. Bus ridership also grew by roughly eight percent in 2025, with nearly 440 million total trips.

Paratransit continued to break records in 2025. October was the first month in history with more than one million riders on the service. Overall ridership is at 161 percent of pre-pandemic levels, reflective of improved service and heightened customer satisfaction.
Customer survey data also reached record highs in 2025: November satisfaction was at 67 percent for subway riders and 62 percent for bus riders, while paratransit satisfaction has consistently been in the high 70s all year. This increase in satisfaction was driven primarily by improved customer safety, with 71 percent of subway customers reporting they felt safe on the system in November, the highest rate since the MTA began monthly surveys in 2022.

Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North

The MTA's railroads also clocked strong performance and ridership results in 2025. The Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) saw the greatest increase of ridership of all MTA modes in 2025, with 81 million customers, a 9 percent increase from 2024. The LIRR also broke several post-pandemic records in December, with 183,250 people taking the train on Saturday, December 13, the highest post-pandemic Saturday, and 152,661 customers on Sunday, December 21, the highest post-pandemic Sunday. On September 24, the LIRR carried more than 300,000 riders for the first time since the pandemic. Overall, LIRR ridership is at 92 percent of pre-pandemic levels.

Performance on the LIRR was also at or above record levels in 2025. OTP for the year exceeded 96 percent, an increase of one point from 2024 and the best non-pandemic year in at least a decade. And customer satisfaction reached new heights, with 81 percent of riders feeling satisfied, an 11 point increase from 2024.

Metro-North continued to deliver excellent service in 2025, with an OTP for the year of 97.8 percent. This strong performance was matched by improvements to service, including the ahead-of-schedule launch of new "Super-Express" service on the Hudson Line on October 5, slashing travel times between Poughkeepsie and Grand Central to less than 90 minutes.

Metro-North carried 69 million riders in 2025, an increase of 6 percent from 2024. The week of December 15 saw the highest post-pandemic ridership recovery week for Metro-North, with 827,015 total customers. The weekend of December 20-21 was Metro-North's strongest weekend ridership performance of the post-pandemic era, with 245,638 customers. Metro-North ridership is now at 88 percent of pre-pandemic levels.

2025 Milestones

• Additional milestones in the transit system in 2025 include:
• Highest ridership subway station: 42 St Complex (Times Sq-42 St N,Q,R,S,W,1,2,3,7/42 St-PABT A,C,E/Bryant Pk B,D,F,M/5 Av 7) - total: 58,848,238
• Highest ridership subway route: 6 line with an average of 560,000 daily riders
• Highest ridership bus route: M15-SBS carried 7,004,769 riders
• Busiest turnstile in the subway: Grand Central - 42 St, Booth R238 Position 16 - total of 1,853,615 entries

Contact the Governor's Press Office