MTA saw record-high ridership over Halloween, marathon weekend in NYC but straphangers have complaints
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority saw a record-breaking surge of riders over Halloween and New York City Marathon weekend — but many fed-up straphangers complained of dangerously crowded platforms and lengthy delays.Some 3.14 million riders took the subway Sunday, marking an all-time ridership high for the first day of the week and shattering last year’s record by 11%, Governor Kathy Hochul and the MTA announced Monday.Similarly, the day before, on Halloween, straphangers smashed the previous post-pandemic Saturday record with 3.59 million riders, marking the most on a single Saturday since 2016.Even before the Big Apple’s mammoth weekend, the subway carried a whopping 4.72 million passengers on a record-shattering Thursday, marking the highest single-day ridership since the pandemic with a 9.7% increase in ridership compared to the same day last year.“From the streets to the subways, New Yorkers were on the move this weekend in record numbers,” Hochul said in a press release.“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,” the governor added.Chair and CEO of the MTA Janno Lieber also chimed in.“Spirits were high this weekend for Halloween and the NYC Marathon, but subway ridership was even higher,” Lieber said.
“These record-breaking numbers show once again that when New York goes big, it goes by mass transit.”In anticipation of the spike in ridership over the busy weekend, the MTA said additional subway services were deployed.However, the agency appeared to have underestimated the surge as complaints from straphangers and videos of packed subway platforms flooded social media.One clip showed a wave of straphangers shoulder-to-shoulder trying to exit the West 4th Street station in Greenwich Village on Halloween night, while another captured throngs of riders trying to escape Second Avenue station alongside the c...