MBTA sees strongest ridership numbers since pandemic

The T is seeing its best ridership numbers since the pandemic, and its leadership is crediting increased service for the boost.

“I’m proud to say, last month, October of ’25, is our highest ridership across all of our systems since pre-COVID days,” Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority CEO and General Manager Phillip Eng said at the authority’s November board meeting.

In October, weekday ridership averaged 938,000 across all of the MBTA’s modes, which include subway, bus, commuter rail, ferry, and paratransit service for people with disabilities.

While ridership isn’t back to the levels it reached before the COVID shutdowns began — October 2019 saw about 1.29 million riders on average every weekday — service has been steadily improving back to pre-pandemic levels.

Heavy rail service on the Red, Orange, and Blue Lines in particular has improved significantly over the last year, according to data published by the MBTA, with the number of scheduled weekday trips up 55%, 50%, and 16% respectively from Spring 2024.

“The number of trips goes to the reliability of this system,” Eng said. “That is going to bring people back. We’re seeing that little by little, every month.”

MBTA Board Chair Thomas McGee said at the meeting that the service and ridership numbers are encouraging. “If you haven’t been on the lines, you’re willing to take a shot at it,” McGee said, because riders can trust trains will arrive often and on-time.

Transit experts who spoke with The Herald also said the numbers were positive.

“The MBTA’s investment in track upgrades is clearly paying off for Red and Orange Line riders,” Caitlin Allen-Connelly, TransitMatters executive director, noted. “The removal of key slow zones directly translates to better service and significantly higher ridership, setting a strong foundation for reliability throughout 2025.”

The increased ridership “proves that when the MBTA commits to faster trains and increased service following the Track Improvement Plan, riders respond,” she added. “This model needs to be extended across the entire system.”

Allen-Connelly pointed to the Green Line as an area of further improvement, which had one percent fewer average daily trips and a 12% decline in ridership in October 2025, compared to the same time last year.

The MBTA is working to improve reliability and safety on the Green Line, shutting down large sections of the B, C, D, and E branches from Dec. 8 to Dec. 22 to perform improvements.

The T will be replacing a wooden electrical trough circa the 1880s, that’s original to the tunnel, as well as modernizing signals, inspecting tunnels, brightening stations, and continuing to work on the Green Line Train Protection System, which is meant to prevent head-on collisions between cars on the tracks.

The shutdowns and major improvement implementations have been a signature of Eng’s time running the T, according to Transportation for Massachusetts Senior Policy Director Pete Wilson.

“When you have someone at the T in charge who really knows how to make improvements in a timely fashion, you really see results,” Wilson said.

Wilson explained that for the first time ever, the MBTA released a diversion schedule a whole year in advance, which not only allowed riders to plan accordingly, “it’s showing they have a plan.”

He believes the improvements in service are driving people back to the T, “because I can actually count on the T taking me where I need to go.”

While the agency has been moving in the right direction under current leadership, Wilson said he’d like to see greater investment in the commuter rail lines. Electrifying the diesel trains and increasing service could bring in more riders.

Still, he said he is unsure that the MBTA will ever see ridership hit pre-pandemic levels because of how commuting and travel patterns have changed in a post-pandemic world.

Charles Chieppo, a senior fellow at the Pioneer Institute who studies and researches transit, agreed with Wilson. “The world is different,” he noted, “It’s encouraging to see the numbers increasing.”

Beyond ridership, Chieppo said the larger problem with the T is growing operational costs. According to a paper he authored this summer, the MBTA is seeing much higher rates of cost increases in areas like bus operations compared to its counterparts in Chicago, Philadelphia, and New York.

Chieppo applauded Eng’s tenure so far, “he’s doing a great job,” but cautioned that if the agency didn’t deal with those rising costs, it could spell trouble in the future, at a time when encouraging people to take transit “is so much more important than it ever been before.”