ALBANY, NY – [Photo by MTA / LIRR]
The Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) carried 1.81 million riders last week between Monday, Sept. 22 and Sunday, Sept. 28, the highest number of customers in a single week since the pandemic, thanks in part to strong ridership to and from the 2025 Ryder Cup, that was held on Long Island for the first time. This milestone exceeds the railroad’s most recent post-pandemic seven-day ridership record of 1.77 million riders set during the last week of August.
“World-class transit service and world-class golf were a winning pairing this week on Long Island,” New York Governor Kathy Hochul said. “The LIRR is the lifeblood of communities from Jamaica to Greenport, and there is no better way to get to work, school or major events than riding the rails. By delivering more frequent and reliable service, we’ve seen consistent ridership growth all year, and this record week is the latest milestone in a strong 2025 for riders on Long Island”.
On Friday, Sept. 26, the LIRR carried 306,735 riders, achieving the highest single-day record post pandemic, including an approximate total of 39,200 golf fans traveling to and from the Ryder Cup 2025 in Bethpage via the LIRR’s Farmingdale station. The pre-pandemic 2019 average weekday ridership of 316,692 was the highest since 1949. Over the course of the week, 154,098 people traveled to the tournament on the LIRR.
“The ridership highs reflect the railroad’s increasing customer satisfaction rate and record-breaking on-time performance statistics”, a joint press release by the Governor’s Office and MTA notes. Overall customer satisfaction with the LIRR reached 81% in the spring of 2025, up five percentage points from the fall 2024, when it reached 76 %, which was itself a six-point increase from spring 2024’s rate of 70 %. Ridership has risen on the LIRR throughout 2025. Total ridership for the month of July was 7.3 million customers — 91.1% of 2019 levels and a post-pandemic record.
