It’s Shoulder to Shoulder on Metro-North Into Manhattan Again

(Bloomberg) -- Metro-North’s daily ridership numbers may still be way down from pre-pandemic levels, but some trains are filling up enough to make it feel like old times again.

Back in the spring, when the return-to-office push began in earnest, there was typically just one person at most in each three-person row on the New Haven Line trains I took into Manhattan. Then, over the summer, it became two and now sometimes even three. Yesterday, it was shoulder to shoulder in some three-seat rows. And just about all the two-seaters were packed tight, too.

Some of this, of course, is a function of the reduction in the number of trains that the MTA is running. But it’s also a clear sign that more of the Wall Street crowd is heading into the office now and that they appear to be increasingly comfortable with the end of social distancing.

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