Subway ridership in 2010 was the second highest ever, but where were all those straphangers riding to and from? The MTA's recently released ridership facts and figures have the answers you seek.
Surprising nobody, the two busiest train stations in the city are Times Square (58,422,597 riders in 2010) and Grand Central (41,903,210 riders). 34th Street Herald Square, 14th Street, and 34th Street Penn Station rounded out the top five.
The biggest single jump in ridership in a station that wasn't recently reopened (i.e. Cortland Street) was the currently closed Elder Avenue stop on the 6 line, which saw its ridership jump 39 percent to 2,864,031 in 2010. The Roosevelt Island F station, which was dealing with a down Tram, also saw a massive jump of 37 percent in ridership in 2010 to 2,580,003 straphangers.
And for all you hipsters out there, the Bedford L stop saw a jump of 9.7 percent to 7,418,203 riders annually—making it the 46th busiest stop in the system. (But that doesn't mean it's not the MOST IMPORTANT!)
Out of 421 stations, the one with the lowest ridership was the Aqueduct Racetrack A stop where 29,644 people went through the turnstiles in 2010, up 9.8 percent from 2009!
There is a lot more info in there to digest, so go have fun with it. Or you can wait around and hope that somebody will make it into a neat data visualization.
