San Francisco's Muni Hits 75% in Ridership Recovery, Making Significant Milestone in the City's Recovery

SAN FRANCISCO —Today, Mayor Daniel Lurie and the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) announced new data showing significant and continued growth in Muni ridership in 2024, with a total of 158 million passenger trips, reflecting an increase of 13.5 million trips compared to 2023.

Mayor Lurie has made San Francisco’s public transportation network a top priority, understanding the long-term health of the Muni system is critical to the City’s continued economic growth. The increase in passenger rides in 2024 is a strong indicator of the momentum seen in San Francisco’s recovery efforts, and signals that when there is a focus on cleanliness, safety, and service reliability, more people will take public transportation. In 2024, the SFMTA saw the highest volume of growth in ridership since 2019, with recovery at 75% of 2019 levels, with monthly recovery peaking at 78% in September. The City also announced that Muni received the highest customer ratings since 2021.

“The increase in Muni ridership demonstrates that when we get the basics right on service delivery people will want to take public transit,” said Mayor Daniel Lurie. “A thriving San Francisco needs an affordable, reliable, and safe Muni network so workers can get to their jobs, our seniors can get to their doctor’s appointments, and our families can get to school. We have a lot of work still to do, but this shows that we are on the right track.”

Key highlights from the 2024 Muni Ridership Review include:

• Daily Boardings on the Rise: Muni averaged 486,000 boardings on weekdays and 318,000 on weekends, an increase of 46,000 trips on weekdays and 17,000 on weekends from 2023.
• Strong Weekend Recovery: Weekend ridership recovery peaked at 92% in September, while weekday recovery reached 75% in October, demonstrating growing confidence in Muni's service.
• High-Performing Routes: The T Third, 38R Geary Rapid, 49 Van Ness/Mission, and N Judah were among the top lines experiencing the largest ridership gains. Muni’s investment in fast, frequent service (with arrivals every 10 minutes or less) played a key role in this growth.
• Special Event Success: Major city events drove transit demand, with record ridership days for lines serving Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, Portola Music Festival, and the Sunset Night Market.

This new ridership data comes at a time when Muni ridership is expected to gain more usage over the coming years, with companies like OpenAI and Databricks announcing major office expansions in Mission Bay and Downtown, welcoming thousands of new employees back into the office in San Francisco. Over the next two years, San Francisco will host dozens of new and returning conferences as well as major sporting events like Superbowl LX and the 2026 World Cup that are expected to draw hundreds of thousands of visitors.

“Muni’s ridership growth in 2024 reflects our commitment to delivering fast, reliable, and accessible public transit for San Francisco,” said Julie Kirschbaum, SFMTA Director of Transportation. “This achievement wouldn’t be possible without the dedication of our operators and support staff, who work tirelessly every day to keep our city moving. Their hard work ensures that millions of additional trips are made possible, and it’s clear that more people are choosing Muni as their go-to mode of transportation. While we celebrate this progress, we recognize there’s still work to do, and we remain dedicated to ensuring that public transit continues to connect communities across the City.”

Muni is a core component of the City’s economic vitality, and is a top priority for the City, regional and state partners, who are working to ensure families and children, students, workers and visitors can rely on Muni to get to where they need to be, despite projected financial challenges.

As Muni ridership continues its recovery, the SFTMA is facing significant short-term and long-term fiscal challenges, with a $50 million budget deficit starting this July growing to a $320 million deficit when federal and state one-time relief funds are exhausted by June 2026. Mayor Lurie has appointed new leadership to tackle these fiscal challenges head on, appointing Julie Kirschbaum last month as the new Director of Transportation for the SFMTA. Under Director Kirschbaum’s leadership, Muni has continued to deliver operational improvements throughout the system, including embracing the proactive, preventative maintenance practices that have helped reduce subway delays by 70%. Mayor Lurie also appointed Alfonso Felder, an operational expert with significant transportation and urban development planning experience, to the SFMTA Board of Directors.

The Mayor and SFMTA leadership are working proactively to address the structural funding crisis, including collaborating with the Muni Funding Working Group. Led by the Controller’s Office, the working group brings together the Mayor’s Office, the Board of Supervisors, SFMTA leadership, community partners, and members of the public to gather input, identify solutions, and provide recommendations to address the near-term and longer-term funding gaps. With the Working Group providing a foundation for the efforts to come, the SFMTA has developed an updated service and efficiency plan that cuts costs while protecting Muni connections and frequency. The proposed service cuts will be revisited at tomorrow’s SFMTA Board of Directors meeting. At a regional level, Mayor Lurie, SFMTA leadership, and State Senators Scott Wiener and Jesse Arreguín, have also taken bold steps to launch a multi-county effort to protect our transportation networks.

“MUNI’s remarkable ridership recovery shows that San Franciscans are noticing how recent changes have made the system cleaner, safer, and more reliable. This is the best MUNI has been in my 28 years as a daily rider,” said Senator Scott Wiener. “We can build on these improvements by securing sustainable long-term funding for MUNI. Building a MUNI service that’s better than ever is vital to our downtown recovery, to our climate goals, and to our progress reducing congestion on our streets. I congratulate MUNI on the terrific progress they’re making for the future of San Francisco.”

With renewed accountability and a refocus on service delivery, the SFMTA will continue to pursue sustainable revenue-generating strategies and advocate for long-term funding at the regional and state levels to keep Muni moving for all. The Muni system saw positive trends throughout 2024, with several routes surpassing pre-pandemic levels—a testament to the growing demand for reliable public transit. As ridership increases, the SFMTA remains committed to reliable service, improving safety, and ensuring Muni remains the best option for San Francisco residents and visitors.

For more details on Muni service delivery data, please visit SFMTA.com/MuniData.