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Annual Ridership

Visuals in this post: Annual Ridership Hourly Rhythms Then vs. Now Costs Station Timeline
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Transit July 2026

West 4th Street Draws More Riders Than It Sends Out

Nearly 14 million riders entered West 4th Street–Washington Square in 2019. The pandemic cut that to 4.5 million; by 2025 the station was back to 12.1 million, 86% of its pre-COVID peak and 18th busiest of the subway's 423 stations. And every year since destination estimates began, more riders have arrived at West 4th than entered it: the Village is where the subway takes people.

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Annual ridership at W 4 St–Washington Sq, 2017–2025
Riders entering the station (actual) and riders arriving at it (MTA origin-destination estimate, available from 2021).
Riders entering (station entries)
Riders arriving (destination estimate)
Created by Tal Roded · NYCuriosity · Source: MTA via data.ny.gov

More riders get off at West 4th than get on. In 2025 an estimated 12.6 million riders arrived at the station against 12.0 million entries, a gap of roughly half a million riders that repeats every year of the estimate. People take the train to the Village and then walk, share a ride, or head home from somewhere else.

The recovery is steady but unfinished. Ridership has grown every year since 2020, adding about 1.1 million riders in 2025 alone, yet remains 1.9 million short of 2019.

Entries are actual fare payments (subway and transfers excluded) at the W 4 St–Wash Sq complex, summed from the MTA Subway Station Monthly Ridership dataset (Feb 2017 onward; the 2017 total excludes January and slightly undercounts that year). The MTA's official 2024 figure for the station is 10,872,225, rank 18 of 423; small differences from the dataset sum reflect the MTA's annual reporting adjustments.

Arrivals are the author's annualization of the MTA Subway Origin-Destination Ridership Estimate datasets (2021–2025): average ridership by month, weekday, and hour with West 4th as the inferred destination, multiplied by the calendar day counts of each month. The MTA infers destinations from each rider's subsequent tap; arrivals are modeled estimates, shown dashed.

Sources: Author's analysis of MTA data via data.ny.gov.