Public Transit Looks For Its Swiftie Bump

Published 05/22/2023 · Updated 05/22/2023

Wherever pop star Taylor Swift’s tour goes, transit operations look for a big boost in ridership and a chance to get new passengers long-term.

Public transit is in its Taylor Swift era.

Last month, after the mega pop star played at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, a TikTok user with the handle Dapharoni posted a video of dozens of Swifties boarding onto a train. It was a spectacle that had all the ingredients of virality: sequined dresses, cowboy boots, an anonymous voice declaring, “This is the worst experience of my life.”

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The video was later included in a segment on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, and inspired comments on Twitter about how the fans were going to single-handedly rescue the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA), which, like every other big-city transit agency, is struggling to attract riders and stay afloat financially.

As it turned out, MARTA did in fact move nearly 140,000 riders from the four stations surrounding the concert venue that weekend — triple the ridership of a typical weekend, according to an agency spokeswoman — with peak demand on Friday night when Janet Jackson was also performing. The previous weekend, the Houston Metro carried 136,000 riders, with about a quarter of them going directly to NRG Stadium to see Taylor Swift, according to a spokeswoman.