The agency continues to see growing ridership since the pandemic
The Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) provided 279 million train and bus rides over the course of 2023, a year marked by steady growth in ridership and more-reliable service. The increase was just over 14 percent year over year.
Systemwide in 2023, the CTA provided nearly 36 million more rides compared to 2022. In 2023, bus ridership increased 15.5 percent over 2022. Rail ridership increased 13.4 percent.
Over the course of the year, the CTA also saw 27 days where ridership exceeded 1 million rides per day.
“Last year we experienced significant post-pandemic improvement and saw very good trends that we hope will continue, year-over-year, in 2024.,” said CTA President Dorval R. Carter, Jr. “As we look towards meeting the ridership demands of this year—particularly on rail-- we have set an aggressive goal of training 200 rail operators in 2024.”
Like transit systems across the country, CTA has seen consistent ridership growth since the start of the pandemic. CTA ridership dropped to around 20 percent in April 2020, and has gradually risen to just over 60 percent of pre-pandemic ridership.
CTA ridership info can be found at transitchicago.com/performance/#kpis