{"id":43614,"date":"2026-07-28T20:23:19","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T20:23:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/43614\/"},"modified":"2026-07-28T20:23:19","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T20:23:19","slug":"lirr-exceeds-pre-covid-ridership-thanks-to-us-open-knicks-victory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/43614\/","title":{"rendered":"LIRR exceeds pre-COVID ridership thanks to US Open, Knicks victory"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>They\u2019re on the right track! <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/05\/24\/us-news\/what-the-heck-is-a-lurr-new-yorkers-scoff-at-one-unsettled-lirr-controversy\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Long Island Rail Road <\/a>ridership soared to pre-pandemic levels for the first time in June, thanks in part to the Knicks NBA Finals victory and the US Open golf tournament.<\/p>\n<p>Nearly eight million travelers used the LIRR last month, a whopping boost of about 102% from the same time in 2019, officials said.<\/p>\n<p>The Long Island Rail Road saw ridership return to pre-pandemic levels in June, thanks in part to the Knicks title run and the US Open golf tournament. Stephen Yang for NY Post<\/p>\n<p>Thousands of Knicks traveled on LIRR to Manhattan for championship parade on June 18, 2026. Luiz C. Ribeiro for NY Post<\/p>\n<p>The spike, which included five million riders not among the traditional Monday-to-Friday commuters, marks the first time one of the MTA\u2019s services exceeded pre-COVID numbers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s the highest non-commutation ridership in the history of the Long Island Rail Road since we\u2019ve been keeping track,\u201d LIRR President Rob Free said during an MTA meeting on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>The boost in ridership numbers was greatly influenced by the summer crowd, with many using the LIRR to attend the four-day <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/06\/17\/sports\/how-shinnecock-hills-has-shined-as-us-open-host-over-130-years\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">US Open tournament in Southampton<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>The trains also carried Long Islanders to New York City for the Knick\u2019s NBA Finals run in June that culminated in <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/06\/18\/us-news\/knicks-heralded-as-kings-of-nyc-in-estimated-largest-ticker-tape-parade-in-citys-history\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">a massive parade in Manhattan<\/a> to celebrate the historic victory. <\/p>\n<p>Ridership reached a peak of 190,009 riders\u00a0on Friday, June 19, when many parties were held across the city for the Knicks the day after the championship parade. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was aided by the US Open at Shinnecock Hills and the Knicks\u2019 championship run, but there\u2019s some positive numbers within that as well, so, very encouraging ridership numbers,\u201d Free said.<\/p>\n<p>Golf fans watching Wyndham Clark take a shot at the 126th US Open Championship at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club in Southhampton on June 21, 2026. Heather Khalifa for NY Post<\/p>\n<p>July is likely to see a boost in ridership as well thanks to the continued summer surge and World Cup games. <\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, subway ridership is still lagging below pre-pandemic levels, with June\u2019s weekday ridership hitting 4.18 million. <\/p>\n<p>Although it represents a nearly 4% increase from the same time last year, it\u2019s still below the average weekday ridership of more than 5.5 million before the pandemic. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"They\u2019re on the right track! Long Island Rail Road ridership soared to pre-pandemic levels for the first time&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43615,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[17175,17176,9133,10491,17177,17178,1295,1565],"class_list":["post-43614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-open-championship","tag-commuters","tag-lirr","tag-long-island","tag-metro","tag-mta","tag-new-york-knicks","tag-the-open-championship","tag-us-open-golf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43614\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}