NYC Subway Breaks Single-Day Record

For those that are interested in mass transit trivia:

The weather was mild on the subway system’s perfect day — clear skies to coax New Yorkers outdoors, paired with a breeze that discouraged long walks. There were probably few vacations planned, with summer a recent memory and the year-end holidays looming. It was, perhaps most important, a Thursday. And so, on Oct. 24, 5,985,311 subway rides were taken in New York City, the most in recorded history, according to an internal memo prepared by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority last week. (The authority began keeping daily records in 1985.) Last year, the authority said, the subway recorded more than 1.65 billion rides, the most in 62 years. Still, the singular triumph of Oct. 24 remains difficult to decode. There was no major citywide event, no stadium full of baseball fans to carry home, with the Yankees and the Mets long since eliminated from championship contention.

New York City's metro system is the seventh-busiest in the world The next US city on the list, Chicago, is 47th.