Almost all of the subway stations experiencing the biggest ridership gains in the past decade are in upper Manhattan and the outer boroughs, new figures show.
A large number of them are on lines that serve Brooklyn and Queens, where threatened service cuts would hit hardest.
Of the top 22 stations, the one with the biggest gain was the Lexington Avenue/63rd Street on the F line, with a 777 percent increase. The second is downtown, Bowery on the M, J and Z, with a 553 percent increase.
But the other 20 are all in the outer boroughs and north of 96th Street in Manhattan.
The Park Place stop on the Franklin Shuttle had a 530 percent increase in riders in 2008, as compared to 1998, the third-highest increase in the city, according to the report by the Center for an Urban Future.
The line with the most stations on the list of the 50 fastest-growing stops is the L, which serves trendy Williamsburg, with 13. The N, which passes through fast-growing Bensonhurst, has 9. Also high on the list are the F, J, M and G.
The MTA has threatened subway service cuts to fill a $1.2 billion budget gap unless Albany lawmakers provide a bailout.
What’s troubling is that many of those cuts would hit Brooklyn and Queens – including eliminating the W and Z lines and shortening the M and G, said Jonathan Bowles, the Center for an Urban Future’s director.
“I think that boroughs have been shortchanged on transit, and not just in the proposed cuts,” Bowles said. “This is a case that we should be increasing and improving service in the boroughs and not cutting it.”
Bowles said funds given to megaprojects like extending the 7 line to the Hudson Yards could have been better spent on improving transit where ridership is skyrocketing.
The report also said 81.7 percent of bus ridership growth occurred outside Manhattan.