Metro News Release

For immediate release: April 4, 2007

Metrorail Records Second Highest Weekday Ridership In its 31-Year History

831,508 Riders Used Metrorail on Tuesday, April 3

Hundreds of thousands of people yesterday helped Metro set the transit agency’s second highest ridership day in the history of the 31-year-old rail system. Riders took 831,508 trips, which was 81,168 more trips than the same day last year. The cherry blossom events, combined with beautiful weather, and the Washington Nationals and Washington Capitals hosting sports events contributed to yesterday’s high numbers. Combined with Metrobus ridership, Metro provided nearly 1.2 million trips yesterday. Typical weekday bus ridership has been about 424,000 trips.

The only day in history that ridership was higher than yesterday (April 3) was for the Reagan State Funeral on June 9, 2004, when 850,636 rode the rail system.
Metrorail’s Top 10 Weekday Ridership Days
Date             Ridership                       Event

1 06-09-04   850,636                         Reagan State Funeral
2 04-03-07   831,508                         Cherry Blossoms/Baseball
3 04-10-06   821,283                         Immigrant Rights Rally
4 01-20-93   811,257                         Clinton Inaugural #1
5 03-31-06   808,108                         Cherry Blossoms
6 10-16-95   804,146                         Million Man March
7 06-13-06   786,843                         Baseball
8 07-27-06   783,374                         Baseball
9 06-16-06   783,093                         Baseball
10 07-26-06 782,495                        Baseball
11 04-02-07 782,068                        Cherry Blossoms/Baseball


Earlier this week, rail ridership also spiked on Monday, April 2, when 782,068 people rode the rail system.

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News release issued at 12:00 am, April 4, 2007.