Where Public Transit Systems Are Bouncing Back Around the World. Across the US and Latin America, subways still see lower ridership and financial pain. But a data analysis shows that passenger counts are higher than ever in some European and Asian cities. Bloomberg Aaron Gordon and Marie Patino June 5, 2025 Five years after the pandemic began, many US transit agencies are teetering over a “fiscal cliff” as rail ridership hovers at about 70% of its pre-Covid levels nationwide, straining agency budgets from lost fare revenue. To some, that might seem an inevitable post-pandemic side effect. But looking at transit data around the world confounds that narrative. Subway ridership came booming back in many European and East Asian cities, while much of North and South America remains well below pre-pandemic levels, according to a Bloomberg analysis of 15 major transit systems on four continents.Why are some public transit agencies thriving post-Covid while others are on the verge of drastic service cuts? There’s no one answer, but differences in transit’s design, purpose and government support are illuminating. The biggest change in the transportation landscape from 2019 to 2024 has been hybrid and remote work, and some transit systems absorbed the loss of commuters better than others. Systems designed primarily to funnel office workers to a downtown business district have had less flexibility to replace lost commuters than more comprehensive systems that are also convenient for recreation or errands. Some cities benefited from favorable government policies that slashed fares, while others lost riders because fares increased. And systems with fast, frequent service generally won riders back at a higher rate. To be sure, this is a small sample of dozens of major transit systems around the world. And it does not include other public transit modes such as commuter railroads and bus networks, which can be more difficult to directly compare between cities and countries. But it provides a window into why some transit systems are thriving in the post-Covid landscape while others struggle.
Working From Home, or Transit Hardly Working?.......In the US, the go-to explanation from transit agencies on why ridership has not bounced back post-Covid is changing work patterns. In San Francisco, Bay Area Rapid Transit spokesperson Jim Allison said the concentration of tech, finance and business employers means the region has a high rate of remote work adoption. He said 76% of riders from October 2019 were still taking BART in October 2024, but those riders were taking 46% as many trips as they did five years before. San Francisco’s office occupancy rate is one of the lowest in the US and about 10% lower than the national average, according to data from the building security firm Kastle Systems. “What that tells us, we think, is people are not using BART to go five days a week into the office — they’re using it two or three times a week,” Allison said. “We think that is the biggest factor.” Other US agencies have a similar interpretation. The New York City subway is a unique beast in the transportation landscape, accounting for one out of every four public transit trips in the entire US. As a result, the New York City subway is more often compared to its international peers in major global cities.
But in talking about the effects of Covid on ridership, executives sound more like other US cities. “Hybrid work is here to stay. We’re not about to get back to pre-Covid levels,” said New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority Chief Executive Officer Janno Lieber during last July’s budget process. “But we do know this: People are taking transit.” The New York subway’s ridership is about three quarters of its pre-pandemic levels, but the number of subway trips per capita is about the same as it was in 1990, the year the number of murders in New York City hit an all-time high. (The subway has also been grappling with the perception of rampant crime despite statistics providing a murkier picture. There were 2,245 murders in 1990 citywide compared to 377 in 2024. It’s not clear to what degree that perception significantly impacted ridership.Regardless, looking internationally complicates the work-from-home narrative. London, for example, has a similar work rate to New York, according to recent surveys of office workers. Yet London’s weekday transit ridership has recovered about 10% more than New York’s. And despite having some of the highest work-from-home rates in Europe, Helsinki had recovered 90% of its ridership before major planned infrastructure repairs in the summer of 2024 shut down parts of the system. In Hong Kong and other parts of Asia, work from home is less prevalent but still a factor in commuting patterns......read on https://www.bloomberg.com/