Metro Sets All-Time Ridership Record

Metro announces some ridership landmark almost every weekday, but Friday turned out to be extraordinary: The 854,638 trips taken was the highest total ever in the 32-year history of the rail system. It was about 4,000 trips higher than the previous record holder, the date of Ronald Reagan's state funeral.

The transit authority says it got a boost from Nationals baseball and the Women of Faith Conference, but clearly there's something more going on here than a couple of special events. The ridership was 62,985 trips higher than the comparable day last year. And practically all of the top 10 ridership dates are now from 2008.

Hundreds of thousands of people helped Metro set a new record for the transit agency's highest ridership day in the history of the 32-year-old rail system on Friday, July 11.

Riders took 854,638 trips,which were 62,985 more trips than the comparable day last year. Practically all of the top 10 dates for ridership are now from 2008. And 20 of the top 25 have occurred since April.

Here's Metro's full top 10 list, with date, ridership and any special events that day.

1 07-11-08 854,638 Baseball/Women of Faith Conference
2 06-09-04 850,636 Reagan State Funeral
3 06-25-08 846,388 Smithsonian Folklife Festival/Baseball
4 07-10-08 844,530 Baseball
5 07-08-08 835,072 Baseball/Basketball
6 07-02-08 834,956 Smithsonian Folklife Festival
7 04-03-07 831,508 Cherry Blossoms/Baseball
8 06-24-08 831,464 Baseball/Basketball
9 06-20-08 829,998 Baseball/Basketball
10 04-24-08 828,973 Baseball/Basketball