With the year we’ve had at New York City Transit, I can say with pride there’s never been a better time to be a Transit rider. Across subways, buses and paratransit we’ve made incredible strides, and the proof is in the ridership. On December 12, we broke our third subway record in as many weeks, carrying 4.65 million customers.
It goes to show, if you deliver great service, people will use it. We had our best non-COVID November in modern record keeping last month, with 84.4% of trains running on time – our fifth ‘best’ of the year and only slightly lower than May’s historic 85.2% high.
This improvement didn’t happen by accident. New Yorkers may have noticed that we’ve been ramping up the rollout of new R211 train cars. There are now 765 in service on the A, C, B and G lines, plus the entire Staten Island Railway, with more coming soon. This year, we also enhanced service on the A, L and M lines, cutting wait time for more than 150,000 customers.
As for buses, we continue to modernize the fleet, most recently introducing new vehicles on Bronx routes. And just last week, we announced plans to purchase an additional 100 new buses, coming to a route near you. They will be outfitted with the Automated Camera Enforcement (ACE) technology now in use on 54 routes. We’ve got 1,400 camera-equipped buses total, covering 560 miles across the City that are helping to increase bus speeds by as much as 30% in some corridors.
2025 was also the year we implemented the Queens Bus Network Redesign. It represents a $34 million annual investment that has added 11 routes to the network, including Rush Routes. Riders are experiencing 7% faster trips on these limited stop routes. But even with more ground to cover, service delivery systemwide hasn’t slipped. It increased to 94.2% in November, a 3% increase over 2023.
But no part of this agency has had a better 12-month run than Paratransit. We’re providing 50% more trips each month than we were in 2019, and this October we surpassed one million trips for the first time ever – not just since the pandemic, but ever — making Paratransit the only mode at the MTA that is far exceeding its pre-COVID ridership. Reliably strong on-time performance and new amenities like the updated MY AAR app and Tap and Ride have made booking and tracking rides even more convenient.
Credit where credit is due, none of this happens without the incredible, 47,000-strong Transit team. We are determined to keep improving how we use every tool, every bit of data, and every type of technology available to us. With our continued commitment to excellence and new transit-focused partners coming to City Hall, riders can expect even greater things to come in 2026.
