The Metropolitan Transportation Authority's Metro-North Railroad, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary, set a new record for ridership in 2008, exceeding 84 million rides.

In all, Metro-North (MNR) provided 84,220,427 trips last year with 83,554,482 rides taken aboard Metro-North trains, representing a 3.9 percent increase compared to 2007, and includes ridership on the railroad's ferries and buses, which reached 665,945 in 2008, a one-year increase of 9 percent.

Additionally, MNR's East-of-Hudson customers enjoyed on-time arrivals 97.5 percent of the time. This marks the fourth consecutive year on-time performance has been 97.5 percent or greater. Also, a record-breaking 94 percent of customers surveyed said they were satisfied with the service they received from MNR.

"Metro-North's record-breaking ridership, stellar on-time-performance and all-time high customer satisfaction represent of what is happening across our network of railroads, subways and buses, and continue trends that have been in place since the MTA was created to manage the New York region's transportation system,” said Elliot G. Sander, executive director/CEO of the MTA. “These results reflect our belief that if you provide high quality service, customers will take notice and vote with their feet."