MTA Metro-North Breaks Weekend Records
and Approaches Pre-Pandemic Levels
NEW YORK—The Metropolitan Transportation Authority achieved several significant milestones following a surge in railroad ridership, with the Long Island Rail Road surpassing pre-pandemic levels for the second time this year, and Metro-North Railroad setting new weekend ridership records, driven by fall travel, including foliage trains serving the Hudson Valley.
Ridership on both railroads is at or near historic highs for both weekday and weekend travel, with LIRR monthly ridership in September now exceeding pre-pandemic 2019 levels, the MTA reported on Oct. 28. Metro-North ridership reached 90% of September 2019 levels, making September its second-strongest month for ridership recovery in 2026, behind June, when ridership reached 93.2% of June 2019 levels.
The railroad achieved its highest weekday ridership (Monday through Friday) between Sept. 21 and Sept. 25, carrying a total of 1,294,011 riders. Excluding the Knicks Championship Parade on June 18 when Metro-North carried 302,486 riders, Metro-North’s strongest single-day ridership was on June 17, with 277,410 riders, 93.8% of June 2019 weekday ridership.
Metro-North is also seeing strong ridership growth on the super-express trains introduced on the Hudson Line in April 2025 and New Haven Line in July 2022. These trains can save Hudson Line customers up to 14 minutes daily on their commute and New Haven Line riders up to 50 minutes, the MTA stated. Since spring 2026, ridership on the Hudson and New Haven Line super-express trains has outpaced overall peak-period growth on their respective lines. Hudson Line super express ridership increased 8% while New Haven Line super express ridership grew 6%.
On Monday, the MTA reported it has achieved an all-time Sunday subway ridership record during the 50th running of the New York City Marathon, carrying 3.14 million riders and shattering last year’s record of 2.81 million riders by 11%, representing 109% of pre-pandemic Sunday ridership. Additionally, on Halloween, Saturday, Oct. 31, subways carried 3.59 million riders, surpassing the previous post-pandemic Saturday record of 3.27 million riders set on May 16, 2026, and the highest Saturday since 2016. These milestones follow a record-breaking Thursday, when the subway carried 4.72 million riders, marking the highest post-pandemic single-day subway ridership. This represents a 9.7% increase from the same day last year.
MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber said, “Turns out if you build it—or in this case, invest in transit—New Yorkers will come. Commuter rail ridership is surging because we invested in expanding service, expanded our customer base, and kept fares affordable. More to come as we deliver on the $68 billion Capital Plan championed by Governor Hochul.”
Published: November 4, 2026.