MBTA Reports Highest-Ever Ridership

Ridership on the MBTA over the past fiscal year—July 1, 2011 to June 30, 2012—reached above 400 million, according to an announcement from the MBTA.

That's the highest ridership the transit authority has ever had in a single fiscal year, the announcement says.

According to the MBTA, ridership in fiscal year 2012 rose by 5.7 percent over fiscal year 2011 to 400,185,000.

There was an average of 1.312 million passenger trips per weekday in fiscal year 2012. That's the first time average weekday ridership was over 1.3 million for the whole year, the announcement says.

According to the announcement, June also represented the 17th consecutive month of ridership growth on the MBTA (when comparing each month to its equivalent month the previous year).

In the announcement, MBTA General Manager Jonathan Davis said the ridership numbers resulted from continued economic growth in the state, lower unemployment rates and improvements to service, information and reliability on the MBTA.

The growth in ridership also came as the MBTA faced a $160 million budget gap it had to close by raising fares and making service changes.

The transit authority faces in the upcoming year.