Riders continue their return to transit in Chicago with the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) reporting its highest ridership levels since 2020 with downtown bus routes seeing a significant jump in use.
In 2022, CTA annual ridership reached 243.5 million, adding more than 47 million rides from the 2021 annual total of 196 million. CTA bus ridership was 140 million in 2022, growing 19 percent from 2021. Rail ridership grew 32 percent in 2022, from 79 million to 104 million.
“As the region continues to emerge from the pandemic, more people are returning to the office and also finding new opportunities to take public transit – from shorter, neighborhood trips to special events throughout the city,” said CTA President Dorval R. Carter, Jr. “CTA continues to provide as much service as possible to meet this increasing demand while also closely watching ridership demand and patterns.”
Notable trends in this steady ridership growth period include a 50 percent increase in ridership on bus routes serving downtown, as more office workers returned to the central business district in 2022. Similarly, Loop elevated and downtown subway stations on Red and Blue lines saw ridership increase between 34 percent and 49 percent compared to 2021.
The highest ridership day of the year was Oct. 13, 2022, with 953,000 rides. In general, fall tends to be the busiest time of year on CTA while Wednesdays and Thursdays are typically two of the busiest days of the week.
Neighborhood and off-peak ridership also performed well, with the continued return of special events and non-work trips contributing to the growth. Weekend ridership has returned to 60 percent of pre-pandemic levels.
The momentum of growing ridership has continued in 2023. Most notably, March 11 set a record high for Saturday ridership with more than 660,000 rides – an increase of 23 percent (or 134,000 additional rides) versus the same period last year.
