Public Transit Statistics in US 2026 | Ridership, Funding & Key Urban Facts

Public Transit in America 2026

Something genuinely encouraging has been happening on America’s buses, subways, light rail lines, and commuter trains since 2021 — and the 2025 and 2026 data confirms it has not stopped. Public transit ridership in the United States reached 8.1 billion trips in 2025, according to Congressional Research Service analysis of National Transit Database figures — the highest total since before the COVID-19 pandemic devastated systems nationwide, and a 59% rebound from the 4.81 billion trips recorded in the pandemic trough of 2021. The American Public Transportation Association’s quarterly reports tell the same story with more granularity: ridership grew in every quarter of 2025 compared to 2024, with Q1 up 7.64%, Q2 up 7.94%, and Q3 up 7.35% year-over-year. By the first four months of 2025, the national transit system had climbed to 85% of its pre-pandemic 2019 baseline — a figure that, while still short of full recovery, represents a pace of improvement that has surprised many analysts given the structural shift toward remote and hybrid work that was supposed to permanently depress commute-driven ridership. New York City’s MTA recorded nearly 1.9 billion trips in 2025 alone, a 7% year-on-year increase and a record-breaking performance year for the nation’s largest transit system.

The 2026 policy environment, however, introduces new uncertainty alongside this operational momentum. The Federal Transit Administration announced $20.6 billion in total FY 2026 funding for public transportation, enacted on February 3, 2026 when President Trump signed the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2026 into law — ending a partial government shutdown and securing transit funding through September 30, 2026. But the funding picture is complicated. While Transit Formula Grants increased by $363 million over FY 2025 to $14.6 billion, the Capital Investment Grant (CIG) program was cut to $3.7 billion — nearly $500 million below prior-year levels — threatening the pipeline of new rail and BRT expansion projects that cities across the country have been counting on. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), which has provided the authorization backbone for federal transit investment since 2022, expires on September 30, 2026 — the same day the new appropriations run out — meaning the next 12 months represent a defining window for the future direction of federal public transportation policy in America. APTA has called on Congress to commit nearly $138 billion to transit over five years in the next reauthorization, $30 billion more than the current commitment.

Key Facts: Public Transit Statistics in the US 2026

 PUBLIC TRANSIT FAST FACTS — US 2025/2026
 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  🚌 Total US transit trips (full year 2025)       8.1 Billion
  📈 Ridership growth — Q1 2025 vs Q1 2024        +7.64%
  📈 Ridership growth — Q2 2025 vs Q2 2024        +7.94%
  📈 Ridership growth — Q3 2025 vs Q3 2024        +7.35%
  🛤️ 2025 ridership vs. 2019 pre-pandemic level   ~85%
  💰 FTA total FY 2026 federal transit funding     $20.6 Billion
  💰 Transit formula grants FY 2026               $14.6 Billion (+$363M)
  💰 Capital Investment Grants FY 2026            $3.7 Billion (–$500M)
  🏙️ MTA NYC total trips (2025, record year)      ~1.9 Billion
  🏢 Public transit — US industry size (2024)     $93.4 Billion
 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

Source: Congressional Research Service — Federal Public Transportation Program (March 2026, R47002); FTA — FY 2026 Current Apportionments (posted March 31, 2026); NACTO — What the FY26 Transportation Bill Means for Cities (February 2026); APTA 2025 Public Transportation Fact Book; APTA Quarterly Ridership Reports Q1–Q3 2025; Mass Transit Magazine — APTA 2025 Fact Book Highlights (2025); Smart Cities Dive — Public Transit Ridership Hits Post-Pandemic High (May 2025)

The aggregate ridership and funding data, read together, describe a transit system that is operationally recovering while simultaneously navigating a federal investment headwind. 8.1 billion trips in 2025 is the strongest ridership performance since before 2020, and the consistency of the improvement — growing in every single quarter of 2025 compared to 2024, at rates above 7% in each period — suggests structural rather than seasonal factors are driving the recovery. The 59% rebound from the 2021 trough is particularly striking when read alongside the persistent narrative that remote work had permanently severed the link between employment and transit use. APTA’s finding that smaller cities saw higher recovery rates than large cities suggests the recovery is geographically broader than the headline MTA and WMATA numbers indicate. On the funding side, the IIJA-era average of $21.4 billion per year represented a 67% increase over the pre-IIJA baseline of $12.8 billion — and the enacted FY 2026 figure of $20.6 billion tracks close to that elevated level, even though specific program cuts, especially to CIG, are creating real project-level pain for agencies counting on expansion funding.

Public Transit Ridership by Mode in the US 2026

 US TRANSIT TRIPS BY MODE — Q1 2025 (APTA, Jan–Mar 2025)
 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  Bus (all types)       ████████████████████████████████████  954.6M  (49.5%)
  Heavy Rail (subway)   ████████████████████████████████░░░░  701.6M  (36.4%)
  Light Rail            █████░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░  ~80–100M
  Commuter Rail         █████░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░  ~75–95M
  Other modes           ██░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░  remainder

  YEAR-OVER-YEAR GROWTH — Q1 2025 vs Q1 2024:
  Heavy Rail            ████████████░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░  +11.39%
  US Total              ██████████░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░  +7.64%
  Bus Total             ████████░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░  +2.19%
 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  Source: APTA Q1 2025 Ridership Report (released May 2025)

Source: APTA Q1 2025 Public Transportation Ridership Report (released May 15, 2025); APTA Q2 2025 Ridership Report (released August 27, 2025); APTA Q3 2025 Ridership Report (released November 20, 2025); APTA 2025 Public Transportation Fact Book; Mass Transit Magazine — APTA 2025 Fact Book Highlights

The mode-by-mode breakdown tells a nuanced story about where the recovery is most and least concentrated. Heavy rail — the nation’s 16 subway systems dominated by New York City’s subway — saw the strongest year-over-year growth in Q1 2025 at +11.39%, significantly outpacing the bus sector’s +2.19% gain. This gap reflects several dynamics: subway systems benefit most from the return-to-office push, as commuters who come back to downtown cores disproportionately use rail; subway systems have also made service reliability investments that have improved the rider experience; and congestion pricing in New York City, launched in 2025, has actively redirected drivers toward transit in the city’s core. Bus ridership, by contrast, grew much more modestly — a reflection of the fact that bus riders tend to have more essential-worker travel patterns that never stopped during the pandemic, meaning there was less suppressed demand to release. APTA’s analysis confirms this: bus riders on average earn less than rail riders, are more likely to hold non-office jobs, and are younger, meaning they never had the luxury of remote work that temporarily kept rail riders home.

The 26 bus rapid transit systems, 48 surface rail systems, 37 regional railroads, and 16 heavy rail systems catalogued in APTA’s 2025 Fact Book represent a network that has grown meaningfully over the past decade. 31 airports in 22 urbanized areas now have rail or bus transit connections — a figure that reflects both the investment in airport rail links like the AirTrain extensions and the practical recognition that transit access to airports is a quality-of-life and economic competitiveness issue for major metro areas. 87% of transit trips directly impact the economy by connecting people to work, retail, healthcare, and entertainment — a figure APTA uses to argue that transit investment is not simply a social service expenditure but a fundamental driver of commercial and labor market activity.

Major City Transit Ridership Statistics in the US 2026

 MAJOR CITY TRANSIT RIDERSHIP — 2025 DATA
 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  NYC MTA (subway + bus + rail)   ████████████████████████████████  ~1.9B trips (2025 record)
  NYC Subway daily avg (Apr 2025) ████████████████████████████████  3.9M weekday trips
  MTA weekday OTP 2025            ████████████████████████████████  83.7% (record)
  LIRR — ridership increase 2025  ████████████░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░  Largest gain of MTA systems
  Metro-North (2025)              ████████████░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░  69M riders (+6%)
  DC WMATA recovery (Dec 20–23)   █████████████████░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░  +180% vs Dec 2020
  Chicago CTA recovery            ████████████░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░  Ongoing budget pressure
  Philadelphia SEPTA              ████████░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░  Fare hike to $2.90 Sep'25
 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  Source: NY Governor; APTA; Orion Policy Institute 2025

Source: New York Governor’s Office — MTA Record-Breaking Year 2025 (January 2, 2026); Smart Cities Dive — Public Transit Ridership Post-Pandemic High (May 2025); Northern Virginia Transportation Commission via North American Community Hub; Orion Policy Institute — Funding Gaps and Service Cuts (October 2025); Mass Transit Magazine — Nashville Back to Pre-COVID Levels (2024)

The city-level transit data shows just how unevenly the recovery has unfolded across American metro areas. New York City sits in a category of its own: with nearly 1.9 billion total trips in 2025, its MTA system alone carries more riders than any other transit network in the Western Hemisphere. The 83.7% weekday on-time performance is the best recorded in the subway’s history, a milestone achieved through sustained capital investment and operational discipline that Governor Hochul highlighted as proof that infrastructure investment produces measurable ridership results. The 6 Line’s 560,000 daily riders and the Times Square–42nd Street complex’s 58.8 million annual entries give a human scale to what these aggregate numbers mean — tens of millions of trips through a single intersection, every single year.

Philadelphia’s SEPTA tells the opposite story, one playing out with variations across dozens of mid-sized transit systems. The September 2025 fare increase to $2.90 — matching New York as the highest single-ride fare in America — followed cuts to 32 bus routes, 16 route shortenings, and service reductions on 88 lines implemented in August 2025, all driven by the expiration of federal COVID-19 relief funds that had been propping up operating budgets since 2021. Chicago’s CTA faces a projected $771 million shortfall after the same federal relief dollars run out — a gap that would require either a 40% service cut or new state and local revenue sources that have not yet materialized. These are not edge cases: they reflect a structural mismatch between the operational funding that federal COVID relief temporarily provided and the underlying revenue bases of agencies that depend on a combination of fare revenue, local taxes, state aid, and federal formula grants that is insufficient to maintain current service levels without the emergency supplement.

Public Transit Funding Statistics in the US 2026

 FEDERAL TRANSIT FUNDING — FY 2026 (Enacted February 3, 2026)
 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  Total FTA funding (FY 2026)     ████████████████████████████████  $20.6 Billion
  Formula grants to agencies      ████████████████████████████████  $14.6 Billion (+$363M)
  Capital Investment Grants (CIG) ████████████████░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░  $3.7 Billion (–$500M)
  Transit Infrastructure Grants   █░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░  $211 Million
  Community Project earmarks      █░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░  $147 Million
  World Cup 2026 transit funding  █░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░  $100 Million

  FTA FUNDING vs. PRIOR PERIODS:
  IIJA annual avg (FY22–FY26)     ████████████████████████████████  ~$21.4B/yr
  Pre-IIJA avg (FY16–FY21)        ████████████████████░░░░░░░░░░░░  $12.8B/yr
  FY 2026 vs. FY 2025             ████████████████████████████████  –$165M less
 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  Source: FTA FY 2026 Apportionments (March 31, 2026); NACTO (Feb 2026)

Source: FTA — Current Apportionments FY 2026 (March 31, 2026); Congressional Research Service R47002 (March 2026); NACTO — FY26 Transportation Spending Bill Analysis (February 2026); Transportation for America — FY26 Transportation Spending Bill (February 2, 2026); Streetsblog USA — Trump Wants to Slash Federal Funding for Public Transit (April 9, 2026); Smart Cities Dive — More Federal Funding Among Transit Leaders’ Priorities (September 2026); APTA FY27 Letter to Congress (May 2026)

The $20.6 billion in FY 2026 federal transit funding represents a continuation of the IIJA-era investment level — but with important internal shifts that matter enormously for the specific agencies and projects affected. The $14.6 billion in formula grants is the funding stream that flows automatically to transit agencies based on urbanized area population, service data, and other formula factors — and its $363 million increase over FY 2025 levels is genuinely positive for operating and state-of-good-repair needs. The CIG program’s $500 million cut to $3.7 billion hits a completely different part of the transit system: the capital expansion pipeline. CIG is the funding mechanism that finances new subway extensions, light rail lines, bus rapid transit corridors, and streetcar systems — the infrastructure that determines whether a metro area’s transit network grows or stagnates. 49 projects were actively seeking CIG funding as of August 2025, representing a total federal ask of $28 billion — meaning the available $3.7 billion funds only a fraction of the identified project pipeline in any given year.

The IIJA’s September 30, 2026 expiration is the most consequential policy deadline in US transit in a generation. The five-year law provided not just the largest single injection of transit capital in American history but also the certainty — multiyear authorized appropriations — that allowed transit agencies to plan and execute long-lead-time capital projects. When it expires, every federal transit program reverts to whatever Congress appropriates on an annual basis, eliminating the planning stability that infrastructure investment requires. APTA’s call for $138 billion over five years in the next authorization — a $30 billion increase over the IIJA commitment — reflects the infrastructure maintenance backlog, the climate transition costs of fleet electrification, and the service expansion needed to serve growing urban populations. Whether Congress meets that ask, falls short, or — as proposed in the Trump administration’s FY 2027 budget — cuts CIG by nearly half and eliminates the Federal-State Partnership for Intercity Passenger Rail, will shape American mobility for the next decade.

Transit Funding Crisis: Budget Shortfalls & Service Cuts in the US 2026

 TRANSIT BUDGET CRISIS — SELECTED AGENCIES (2025–2026)
 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  Chicago CTA / RTA projected shortfall  █████████████████████████  $771 Million
  → Service cuts threatened              ████████████████████████░  40% of service
  Philadelphia SEPTA — fare increase     ████████████████░░░░░░░░░  $2.90/ride (Sep 2025)
  SEPTA — routes cut (Aug 2025)          ████████████░░░░░░░░░░░░░  32 routes eliminated
  SEPTA — lines with reduced service     ████████████████████░░░░░  88 routes reduced
  Total general fund transfer to mass    ████████████████████████████ $60B (2008–2026)
  transit (without which agencies fail)
 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  Source: Orion Policy Institute 2025; NACTO 2026; CRS 2026

Source: Orion Policy Institute — Funding Gaps and Service Cuts (October 2025); NACTO — FY26 Transportation Bill Analysis (February 2026); Transportation for America — FY26 Spending Bill Analysis (February 2, 2026); Streetsblog USA — Trump Wants to Slash Federal Funding for Public Transit (April 9, 2026); CRS R47002 (March 2026)

The transit funding crisis playing out in Chicago, Philadelphia, and dozens of other cities across the country is not a consequence of poor management or inefficiency — it is the predictable arithmetic of what happens when emergency federal relief that was never meant to be permanent gets spent down. Transit agencies used COVID-era relief funds to maintain service levels during and after the pandemic when ridership — and therefore fare revenue — collapsed. As ridership has recovered, the relief funds have simultaneously expired, leaving agencies in a structural gap between the fare revenue they are now collecting and the operating costs they committed to sustaining. The Chicago Regional Transportation Authority’s projected $771 million shortfall would require either a 40% service cut — eliminating the usefulness of the network for hundreds of thousands of riders — or new state and local tax revenue that the Illinois General Assembly has not yet agreed to provide, with a legislative fix requiring a three-fifths supermajority that has not materialized.

Philadelphia’s executed service cuts are the most visible proof that the funding cliff is not theoretical — it has already happened. 32 bus routes eliminated, 16 routes shortened, and 88 total lines reduced in August 2025 represent a real withdrawal of transit service from real communities, affecting the most transit-dependent riders — those without cars, those with lower incomes, essential workers — who typically have the least political power to demand restoration. The $2.90 single-ride fare increase adds cost pressure on top of service reduction, a combination that research consistently shows suppresses ridership among the most price-sensitive users. Against this backdrop, the $2.3 billion in IIJA funds rescinded or shuffled in the FY 2026 appropriations bill — despite the overall transit formula funding increase — represents what Transportation for America called “undermining trust and confidence in the supposed certainty expected with a five-year surface transportation reauthorization.”

Public Transit Economic & Environmental Impact in the US 2026

 TRANSIT ECONOMIC & ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT — US 2024/2025
 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  US transit industry total size           ████████████████████████  $93.4 Billion (2024)
  Direct jobs in US public transit         ████████████████████████  430,000+
  Federal transit funds via private biz.   ████████████████████████  77% of federal $
  Transit trips impacting economy          ████████████████████████  87% of all trips
  Trips for work / commute (estimate)      ████████████████████░░░░  ~50%+ of trips
  Office occupancy rate (early 2025)       ████████████████░░░░░░░░  54%
  Transit ridership recovery (early 2025)  ████████████████████░░░░  85% of 2019

  APTA FY27 FUNDING REQUEST:
  Transit                ████████████████████████████████████████  $26.3 Billion
  Passenger + freight rail ████████████████████████████████░░░░░  $24.8 Billion
 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  Source: APTA 2025 Fact Book; Smart Cities Dive; APTA FY27 letter

Source: APTA 2025 Public Transportation Fact Book; Mass Transit Magazine — APTA 2025 Fact Book Highlights; Smart Cities Dive — Public Transit Ridership Post-Pandemic High (May 2025); NACTO — FY26 Transportation Bill Analysis (February 2026); APTA letter to House and Senate on FY27 funding (May 2026)

One of the most analytically interesting data points from APTA’s 2025 research is the relationship between transit ridership recovery and office occupancy. By early 2025, transit ridership had recovered to 85% of 2019 levels — while office occupancy stood at only 54%. If transit ridership were purely a function of office commuting, these two figures should be roughly proportional. The fact that they are not tells you something important about who rides transit and why in 2025: a large and growing share of trips are for non-commute purposes — shopping, medical appointments, recreation, school, and other travel that continued throughout and after the pandemic and has grown as post-pandemic urban life has resumed. APTA’s finding that 87% of all transit trips directly impact the economy by connecting people to work, retail, healthcare, and entertainment is the data version of the same insight: transit is not just a commuter product, it is an economic circulation system that keeps cities functional for everyone who uses them.

The $100 million in FY 2026 transit funding specifically dedicated to 2026 FIFA World Cup host cities is a notable carve-out that reflects the practical reality of hosting a mega-event in a car-dependent country. The eleven US host cities — Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Miami, New York/New Jersey, Philadelphia, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Seattle — will collectively absorb millions of international visitors who will need to move between airports, stadiums, hotels, and city centers efficiently. Transit is the only mechanism capable of moving those volumes, and the dedicated funding acknowledges that existing systems will need targeted capital investments, service expansions, and coordination infrastructure to handle the surge. APTA’s May 2026 letter to Congress calling for $26.3 billion for transit and $24.8 billion for passenger and freight rail in FY27 frames the funding ask around exactly this kind of economic use case — transit as a national economic asset, not a charity service for those without cars.

Disclaimer: This research report is compiled from publicly available sources. While reasonable efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, no representation or warranty, express or implied, is given as to the completeness or reliability of the information. We accept no liability for any errors, omissions, losses, or damages of any kind arising from the use of this report.

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