It depends on what mode of transit are you talking about. For the commuter rail, it’s in the regional style transportation mode because not everyone commutes during peak hours like they’ve used to. Sure, plenty do, but more travel during midday and off peak times too. That’s one reason why the gaps are larger, but evenly spread across some lines. There’s also track and other scheduled work going on which is why some schedules are temporarily changed. Sometimes there’s a crew availability issues. There’s much more I could talk about, but I’m not sure on those. So I’ll let others fill in the blanks there. For the subway, it’s similar to what I have explained above. One thing for sure I can say is that ridership is more spread out throughout the day. Like I was saying about regional rail style, it can also be applied to the subway because not everyone commutes to work and back during peak rushour. Some have night, early morning, midday, or even an evening or night shift. Speed restrictions are another big factor of increased headway times. There’s more I could explain here, but I’ll let others fill in the blanks. Ridership will never be the same as it was before Covid ever happened. Keep in mind that this is my opinion of how I understand the issues. Nothing is quoted from anyone that works for the railroad and I’m aware that they have more concrete understanding of these issues.
