The chart above shows the number of annual riders for every subway station in each state. One million annual riders is the equivalent of 2,740 riders a day. So Ohio has 904 daily riders for every station while New York has 10,932.
Findings
- The difference between the state with the most annual riders per subway station, New York, and the state with the least (that has a subway system), Ohio, is 3.66 million.
- New York has 12.09 times the annual riders per subway station that Ohio does.
- Pennsylvania and California have two subway systems, New York has three, all other states have one.
- The median number of annual riders per station in states that have a subway is 1.68 million and the mean 1.91 million.
Caveats
- Data is from 2017.
- Hawaii is currently working on building a subway system for Honolulu which is expected to have 2.02 million annual riders per station.
- All figures are rounded to the nearest hundredth.
Details
Considering that New York has the most subway stations in the US, but still manages to top this list shows how large the chasm is in subway ridership between New York and the other states. New York and Massachusetts could get away with adding additional stations in their systems while Ohio, Maryland, and Florida could do with considerably more riders.
New York has three heavy rail systems all in the city of New York. The New York City Subway has 4.07 million annual riders per station, the Staten Island Railway has 0.42, and PATH has 7.15 (the highest in the country). California has BART in San Francisco with 2.87 stations per mile and Metro Rail in Los Angeles with 2.81. Pennsylvania has two systems in Philadelphia. SEPTA has 1.22 stations per mile and the PATCO Speedline has 0.83.
Data
| State | City | Name | Stations | Riders (in millions) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| California | Los Angeles | Metro Rail | 16 | 44.9 |
| California | San Francisco | BART | 45 | 129.3 |
| Florida | Miami | Metrorail | 23 | 19.7 |
| Georgia | Atlanta | MARTA | 38 | 67.4 |
| Illinois | Chicago | Chicago L | 145 | 230.2 |
| Maryland | Baltimore | Baltimore Metro Subway | 14 | 10.8 |
| Massachusetts | Boston | MBTA Subway | 51 | 167.2 |
| New York | New York City | New York City Subway | 424 | 1,727.3 |
| New York | New York City | PATH | 13 | 93 |
| New York | New York City | Staten Island Railway | 21 | 8.8 |
| Ohio | Cleveland | RTA Rapid Transit: Red Line | 18 | 5.9 |
| Pennsylvania | Philadelphia | PATCO Speedline | 13 | 10.8 |
| Pennsylvania | Philadelphia | SEPTA | 75 | 91.8 |
| Washington DC | Washington, D.C. | Washington Metro | 91 | 229.6 |
Sources
Wikipedia. 2019. "List of Metro Systems." Accessed February 24, 2019. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metro_systems.