MBTA Ridership Passes 400 Million, Hits New Record

BOSTON (AP) — There were more than 400 million individual rides on the MBTA during the last fiscal year for the first time in transit agency history.

The Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority announced Tuesday that average weekday ridership for the fiscal year that ended June 30 grew by 5.7 percent over the previous year.

An average of more than 1.3 million people took the bus, train or trolley each weekday, the first time daily ridership averaged more than 1.3 million for an entire year.

The biggest jump was on buses, with a nearly 6 percent growth in ridership.

System-wide average weekday ridership for June increased by 1.5 percent over June 2011, the 17th consecutive month of growth.

General Manager Jonathan Davis credited the growth to an improving economy, real-time schedule information and service reliability.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.