NYC subway ridership reaches post-pandemic record with 3.94 million riders on Thursday – New York Daily News – NewsEverything New York

Subway ridership reached its highest levels since March 2020 this week, Gov. Hochul said Friday.

Some 3.94 million straphangers swiped through the turnstiles on Thursday, MTA data shows. That was the largest single-day subway ridership recorded since March 12, 2020, when 4.1 million people rode the subway in the weeks before any New Yorkers had died of COVID.

“The MTA is the lifeblood of this city, and these ridership numbers demonstrate that New York is continuing to make a strong comeback,” Hochul said in a statement.

“People are coming back to our subways as we have made critical investments in service and safety,”

Thursday’s ridership record beat by 11,000 passengers the previous post-pandemic high, recorded on Dec. 8.

The figure is a significant increase over daily ridership last fall, which peaked at 3.64 million.

The MTA — which relies on farebox revenue to fund a significant portion of its budget — has struggled to regain pre-COVID ridership numbers as many New Yorkers continue to work remotely.

At the height of the pandemic, the agency stopped 24-hour subway service to better facilitate cleaning. Round-the-clock subway service resumed in May 2021.