By Patrick Hedlund
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN — More than 58 million people passed through the Times Square subway station last year, making it the busiest transit hub across the five boroughs, a new study stated.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority recently released its 2009 ridership report ranking the city’s most highly trafficked subway stations, and nine of the top 10 were in Manhattan, with the majority located in major transportation hubs in Midtown.
Behind the Times Square station was the Grand Central-42nd Street station (with 42,002,971 riders annually), the 34th Street-Herald Square station (36,945,680 riders), the 14th Street-Union Square station (34,245,245 riders) and 34th Street-Penn Station (27,196,195 riders).
The 59th Street-Columbus Circle station, the 59th Street/Lexington Avenue station and the 86th Street 4-5-6 station rounded out the top 10 for Manhattan.
In comparing last year’s data with 2008’s, the New York Times found notable jumps in ridership at hubs like the Bowery station on the Lower East Side (up 12 percent), the Chambers St. 1-2-3 station in TriBeCa (up 6.7 percent), the 145th Street 3 station in Harlem (up 6.4 percent) and the 215th Street 1 station in Inwood (up 6.3 percent).
Drops in ridership occurred at the Times Square station (down 4.6 percent), the Rector Street station in the Financial District (down 12.8 percent), the Fifth Avenue/53rd Street station (down 11.4 percent) and the Lexington Avenue-53rd Street station (down 9.1 percent), the Times found.
Other Manhattan stations with high rankings included the Lexington Avenue-53rd/51st Street station (11th overall), the Canal Street J-M-Z/N-Q-R-W/6 station (15th), the 14th Street/Sixth Avenue station (16th), the Chambers Street/WTC/Park Place A-C-E/2-3 station (17th), and the 72nd Street 1-2-3 station (20th).
The New York City subway system has 468 stations, the largest number of public transit subway stations of any system in the world. The entire system counted a total 1,579,866,600 riders last year.
