Metro Ridership Soars This Past Weekend

Beautiful weather, peak bloom and the National Cherry Blossom Festival Parade all contributed to especially high ridership on Metrorail this past weekend.

On Saturday, riders took 638,474 trips on the rail system, making it the highest Saturday ridership since the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear on October 30, 2010.  Saturday’s ridership was nearly double that of an average Saturday (93 percent higher).

On Sunday, ridership was 405,154 trips — 83 percent higher than average — making it the busiest Sunday on Metrorail since July 4, 2010.

Metro continues to encourage riders traveling to the Tidal Basin to use stations other than Smithsonian, which is always particularly crowded at this time of year.  Other stations within a short walk of the National Mall include L’Enfant Plaza, Federal Triangle and Arlington Cemetery.  Riders are also encouraged to load enough value on their SmarTrip card for their entire roundtrip to avoid lines at vending machines.

Metro’s four-week break from weekend track work ended yesterday.  Rebuilding work will continue April 18-20 with service adjustments on the Red, Orange and Blue lines.

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