[kylelibra]

1.75 billion customers last year which is a 2.6% increase. It would be helpful to have the context of how much of the city's population has used the system over time. A quick google search makes me think this increase is far outpacing the population increases in the city.

[epc]

That does seem to be outpacing growth in both the City and metro area. The City is now at approximately 8.5MM people [1], the metro area has approximately 20.1MM people.

The City had 8.17MM people in 2010[2], so just a hair under 5% growth since 2010, maybe 1% per year?

[1] http://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2015/cb15-56.h...

[2] http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/36/3651000.html

[heliodor]

The population growth analysis would require further breakdown. The eastern half of Queens doesn't have a subway network. And what about Staten Island?

[copsarebastards]

Agreed. I looked at the title and thought, "Well duh, the population is increasing." But if subway ridership is outpacing population growth by a wide margin, that would be interesting.

[Shivetya]

The numbers are meaningless unless measured against total passenger miles of all sources. Taking numbers out of context is one way to make a story where one is not. Sure ridership is up, however was it take a away from self driven miles or wholly new people entering the system for all travel types?