A graphic shared by u/amad95 shows the decline of American public transit ridership based on data from New York's MTA, Chicago's CTA, Massachusetts's MBTA, Washington DC's WMATA and California's BART.

Before the initial pandemic lockdowns of early 2020, average ridership for these transit systems was around 100 million daily. That plummeted to less than 25 million after March 2020's lockdowns. After staggered openings since mid-2020, ridership has slowly started to rise, but is still nowhere close to pre-2020 levels.

In 2023, Bay Area's BART (which connects San Francisco, Oakland, the East Bay and other cities) had the lowest ridership among major markets, whereas New York's MTA (its subway, bus and rail network) had the highest.

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Via amad95.