Post-Pandemic Trends: Transit ridership over the week

Here’s Brandon Donnelly’s conclusion, based on his own observations in Toronto and some data from New York, on how people are returning to work.

My unscientific Jimmy the Greek Reopening Index has led me to believe that flexible hours have resulted in more people working from home on both Mondays and Fridays. The middle of the week seems to when demand peaks for delicious lunchtime souvlaki.

But that may only be half right. According to some recent transit data from New York City, which looked at weekday subway ridership between October 2021 and March 2022, it seems to only be Mondays where people really prefer to stay at home:

So over this particular 6 month period, Monday ridership was about 7% lower.

The probable takeaway: People seem to like to ease into the week.

What about Vancouver?  Thanks to Translink for putting together some data for us.

This is what’s happening here:

Mondays in March had an average of 500,000 trips, while the other weekdays had between 550,000 and 570,000 trips on average.

Not a lot of love for Mondays here either.  Friday, on the other hand, is the most popular time to transit.

Could it be that workers travel to places like downtown on Fridays because there are cultural and entertainment options they can take advantage of after work?