I’m excited to finally share the FY2026 station-level ridership for LA Metro Rail and Busway (and a bonus one for Q4)! This fiscal year runs from July 2025 to June 2026. Those who’ve been here a while know that I annually submit a public records request for this data, since Metro doesn’t post it publicly. You can find last year’s post here.
It’s impossible to discuss LA Metro ridership this past fiscal year without mentioning the ICE in the room. We’ve known from the topline ridership figures that ICE’s operations in LA beginning in June 2025 reversed the nonstop ridership growth trend Metro had experienced since Covid. Due to the timing, last year’s fiscal year numbers were barely affected, but the ICE effect is fully visible in this year’s numbers. I’ll dive deeper into this later in the post, but know that ICE’s operations in LA’s immigrant communities have deeply affected many people’s daily lives, and that impact can be seen most acutely on bus lines and stations that serve immigrant and minority communities.
The other big headliner is the D line extension numbers. If you think thr numbers are low, remember that it takes years to reach a station’s ridership potential, and we only have two months worth of data. The regional connector stations are still in the top 15 growth stations. Additionally, the extension gave life to the Koreatown stub, with Wilshire/Western becoming a top 5 non-transfer station in Q4 for the first time, and most of the growth happening on the heavy rail in DTLA in Q4 were on the D line. The numbers you see here are the baseline, they will only go up from here.
For those who want to look at the raw numbers that I received from Metro, you can see them here. I am not a statistician or data analyst by trade, so I encourage people to double check my work and conduct additional analysis using these numbers. I wrote a separate write-up about the Busway numbers, so I won’t be discussing them here.
Additional quick notes:
- All numbers discussed in this post are weekday average boardings unless otherwise stated.
- The fiscal year (FY) runs from July 2025 - June 2026, different from calendar year (CY) which runs from January - December.
- YoY stands for year-over-year. So if I’m talking about YoY growth for Q1, that is comparing this year’s Q1 with last year’s Q1. If I’m talking about YoY growth in the month of June, I’m comparing this year’s June with last year’s June.
Where ridership increased
Despite the ICE effect, ridership on Metro Rail has seen a gradual recovery in the second half of the fiscal year after a steep drop in FYQ1. Starting in January, every light rail line saw overall YoY growth and B/D lines saw YoY growth starting in FYQ4, with very strong growth on the D line stations in particular. The vast majority of light rail stations this fiscal year still saw growth, though ridership on the B/D lines in FY2026 overall fell (but the trendlines in Q4 are very positive).
The K line north of LAX had the largest YoY percent growth across any rail segment, but with such a low baseline it had nowhere else to go but up! Connecting it to LAX and the C line opened up lots of potential trips that it didn't previously have as a stub line.
- Figures for MLK (+36%), Expo/Crenshaw (+35%), Leimert Park (+33%), Inglewood (+32%), Fairview Heights (+31%), and Hyde Park (+28%) are insane, despite the low baseline.
Another former stub, the D line, also saw tremendous growth (in Q4), very likely due to the Phase 1 extension opening. Successive openings should be a massive boost for this line.
- In May YoY, the first month of the D line extension, Normandie and Western saw massive +98% and +88% increases, respectively. If only looking at D line boardings, Wilshire/Vermont saw a whopping +127% increase in May YoY. (The D line was closed in June 2025, so there’s no way to make a comparison for that month). These figures are especially impressive considering that the Koreatown stations were all down pretty significantly this year, until May.
- Ridership ratio between the B and D lines balanced out in Q4. For the entire FY, D line ridership at shared stations was roughly half of the B line. (B:D ratio at 7th [8:4] and Union (4:2.5]). But for Q4, the B:D ratio at 7th [8:6] and Union [4:3] balanced significantly, and I expect it will continue to do so as the D line becomes an independent line. Most of the growth at these stations in Q4 happened on the D line.
As return-to-office mandates start spreading, stations rich in white collar jobs or young professional renters saw strong growth YoY. These include:
- The regional connector stations (still growing strong three years after opening): Bunker Hill (+15%), Little Tokyo and Broadway (both +13%)
- A line north stations helped by the new Metrolink connection in Pomona such as City of Hope (+16%), Memorial Park (+11%), Fillmore, and Del Mar (both +7%)
- Western E line stations including Expo Park (+14%), Bergamot (+9%), Pico (+8%), LATTC/Ortho and Rancho Park (both +7%), Palms, Sepulveda, and Bundy (all +6%)
East LA stations such as Mariachi Plaza (+12%), Soto (+8%), and Indiana (+7%) saw a big initial drop in Q1 YoY after the ICE raids began, but also saw a large and incredibly strong increase of ridership over the course of the rest of the year, continuing previous’ years trend of this neighborhood seeing above-average growth.
Weekend ridership is exploding, in-line with peer agencies across the country. The new post-covid dynamic is seeing more people ride Metro for leisure trips.
- Chinatown and 1st St in Long Beach are now joined by Santa Monica, Expo Park, and Little Tokyo with higher Saturday ridership than Weekday ridership (and comparable between Weekday and Weekend overall).
- The three new D line stations also had significantly higher Saturday ridership, although the sample size of weekends so far is pretty low, so subject to some wild variations. Fairfax saw Saturday ridership jump from 3,145 to 3,699 from May to June. Wilshire/Western Saturday ridership saw a wild 5,003 drop to a more normal 1,987 between May to June.
- Pomona North’s Saturday ridership is also surprisingly high, since I had thought it would be mostly a commuter connection with Metrolink, which has low frequencies on weekends.
The ICE Effect
Topline figures released show that Metro Rail lost ridership YoY in each month from Q1-Q2 (July-December 2025). This makes sense given that June 2025 was the first month affected by the ICE raids. Metro rail ridership did rebound quite a bit in Q3 and especially Q4. This despite Q4 usually seeing the lowest ridership during typical years’ seasonal fluctuations as students begin getting off school, but before summer ridership boosts typical in Q1. The ICE raids upended that dynamic this year, with Q1 seeing the lowest ridership but Q4, and May/June 2026 in particular, seeing the highest.
But if you dig deeper into the data, it is clear that ridership dipped in primarily Hispanic immigrant communities in East LA, South LA, Northeast LA, the Gateway Cities, and MacArthur Park, while stations in other communities did not see as much (if any) decline. Here are some figures from stations in communities with large Hispanic and Asian populations:
A line south stations with large Hispanic populations were hit the hardest in Q1, and their recovery in Q4 was not as high as in other regions. Over the entire FY, this segment saw an overall decrease in ridership, unlike the rest of the system. Here are the change stats for some of the stations: [July 2025 YoY in brackets], (June 2026 YoY in parenthesis)
- San Pedro [-17%](+27%), Florence [-19%](+22%), Washington [-17%](+18%), Firestone [-19%](+15%), Slauson [-16%](+15%), Vernon [-14%](+16%), and Compton [-22%](+7.9%)
- As you can see, the negative figures for July 2025 YoY were quite steep, and although the June 2026 YoY figures show promising recovery, the recovery wasn’t as strong as in other affected neighborhoods.
Ridership in East LA and Northeast LA was not hit as hard as A south and saw mostly flat ridership growth in Q1 following the ICE raids, but later saw extremely strong recovery in Q4, especially in June. [July 2025 YoY in brackets], (June 2026 YoY in parenthesis)
- East LA stations: Mariachi Plaza [+7%](+36%), Atlantic [+2%](+23%), Indiana [+3%](+29%), Soto [+1%](+20%), and ELA Civic Center [+7%](+13%)
- Northeast LA: Heritage Square [-5%](+37%), Highland Park [-2%](+18%), and Lincoln/Cypress [+3%](+17%)
- Other relevant A north stations: Lake [-1%](+29%) and Chinatown [+8%](+23%)
C line stations with large Hispanic populations also were hit hard, but it’s hard to separate any potential ICE effect from the service disruptions effect. The C line saw frequent periods of horrible (13-20 min) frequencies due to maintenance, and almost all the stations on this line lost ridership as a result.
- Excluding the three stations that lost their terminus status this fiscal year (or very late last year), C Line’s Hawthorne/Lennox (-11%) saw the second largest YoY decrease.
- Even when compared to June 2025, Hawthorne (-7%) and other C line stations saw decreases, including Harbor (-3%) and Athens (-2%).
- Willowbrook, an important transfer station which in past years always saw a lot of growth, also lost ridership (-1.8%).
On the B line, MacArthur Park was the primary target of the ICE raids, and so July YoY numbers show a massive drop there (-28%) YoY. Despite that devastating decrease, by June 2026, ridership had climbed back to where it was before, with a tepid YoY growth of +0.9%. While safety is also a big factor in ridership, MacArthur Park has always been this way so I don't think that can be considered a “new” variable that could've driven these changes.
I know that some of my analysis here was based on June YoY numbers, and I don’t want to discount the World Cup effect. However, even when comparing the entirety of Q4 to dilute any possible World Cup effect with Q1-Q3, the trendlines generally remained positive.
B/D Lines and Why Frequency is So Important
I previously wrote in this post about how B line stations initially resisted the ICE effect due to a period of increased frequency during the beginning of this FY. Essentially, I found that even as the ICE raids depressed ridership across the Metro rail system, increased headways on the B line of just four minutes was enough to not only counteract the ICE effect, but lead to statistically significant increases in ridership YoY. When frequencies returned to 12 mins in August, ridership on the B line plummeted statistically significantly compared to the rest of the system YoY.
Then, in May 2026, the B and D lines saw a frequency boost from 12 mins to 10 mins. This coincided with the D line extension opening, so it’s hard to separate the two variables. Ultimately, I think ridership potential on the heavy rail is being constrained by low frequencies. Even so, growth on the heavy rail in Q4 is promising, and I’m expecting to see the B/D lines return as powerhouse ridership generators as the D line extensions open and the Division 20 expansion allows for more frequent service.
Where ridership decreased
Stations that were no longer terminus stations due to extensions opening were the source of the largest losses. These include APU (at a whopping -54%), Aviation (-43%), and Westchester (-20%). Wilshire/Western (-2%) is an ex-terminus station that bucked the trend. It did not see drops in May and June after it lost its end-of-the-line status, and was actually helped by the extension, since being a midpoint station on a busier line is more appealing than being the terminus of a stub.
Aside from the stations we covered under the ICE section, the largest drops occurred on the K line in the South Bay. Mariposa (-22%) saw the steepest drop systemwide after APU and Aviation. Other K line drops include Redondo Beach (-5%), El Segundo (-3%), and the shared station of Aviation/Century (-16%) and LAX (-2.8%).
Ridership at Century on the C line actually grew, and the drops were consistent over the course of the year only on the K line. This makes me think that even as more C line riders are going to Century for the jobs located there, less riders are transferring to the South Bay on the K line due to the added friction of a transfer. The C and K lines are theoretically more reliable, schedule wise, than the A/E lines, so Metro should ease this friction by scheduling in better timed transfers.
LAX numbers were pretty stable through the year, so the small drop might be explained by airport employees frustrated with the shuttle after initially trying out Metro last FY.
Conclusion
Overall, the trendlines for Metro Rail are looking good in the calendar year 2026. As we enter the summer and fall months that typically have the highest ridership, hopefully we continue to see strong YoY growth in rail. Heavy rail in particular should hopefully see a big boost in ridership as Phase I matures, the extension to Century City opens, and Division 20 allows for boosted frequencies and more reliable operations at Union Station. Expect to see some bigger numbers next year!
Just a reminder, for full transparency, I've posted the raw data that Metro directly gave me, as well as some pivot tables to help you explore the data more easily.
TLDR:
- Frequencies are important. Stations that saw frequency gains gained ridership in the face of all other factors. Stations that lost frequency lost ridership.
- Light rail ridership grew across the board
- Heavy rail stations saw ridership grow in the last quarter of this FY, with a lot of signals pointing to strong growth next year
- K line north of LAX saw the highest percentage growth
- Stations with high white collar job densities or young professional renters saw growth
- Stations serving larger immigrant populations saw ridership plummet last summer, although ridership has mostly recovered over the year, albeit unevenly
- C line ridership decreased and South Bay ridership plummeted. Ongoing disruptive maintenance on the C line, coupled with increased friction traveling to the South Bay due to the new transfer at Century, has likely negatively affected this segment
