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Comment by kylelibra | Hacker News Reader

1.75 billion customers last year which is a 2.6% increase. It would be helpful to have the context of how much of the city's population has used the system over time. A quick google search makes me think this increase is far outpacing the population increases in the city.

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That does seem to be outpacing growth in both the City and metro area. The City is now at approximately 8.5MM people [1], the metro area has approximately 20.1MM people.

The City had 8.17MM people in 2010[2], so just a hair under 5% growth since 2010, maybe 1% per year?

[1] http://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2015/cb15-56.h...

[2] http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/36/3651000.html

The population growth analysis would require further breakdown. The eastern half of Queens doesn't have a subway network. And what about Staten Island?

I couldn't find any sub-regional breakdowns for this year’s census data yet. I assume they’ll appear at the second link eventually.

Speculating but based on living here: much of the population growth has been in Brooklyn and "inner" Queens. The Bronx and Manhattan have also had growth but at slower rates. Outer Queens lacks subway but the LIRR (commuter rail) has multiple lines hitting those neighborhoods. Not at all the same as rapid transit but they're not totally lacking transit options, and typically connect into key subway junctions.

SI lacks rapid transit to the core business centers in Manhattan and Brooklyn. You can take express buses, drive, or the SI Ferry to lower Manhattan but then you still (typically) have an additional commute.

Several of the NJ cities immediately west of Manhattan have also had decent growth but aren't counted in the NYC stats.

Agreed. I looked at the title and thought, "Well duh, the population is increasing." But if subway ridership is outpacing population growth by a wide margin, that would be interesting.

The numbers are meaningless unless measured against total passenger miles of all sources. Taking numbers out of context is one way to make a story where one is not. Sure ridership is up, however was it take a away from self driven miles or wholly new people entering the system for all travel types?

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