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New York City subway ridership has reached its highest level in more than 65 years.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority says more than 1.7 billion people rode the subway last year. That's a 2.6 percent increase from 2013.

Figures released Monday show that 5.6 million people rode the system on weekdays and 6 million took it on an average weekend.

The MTA says at its busiest, it carried more than 6 million customers on 29 weekdays in the last four months of 2014. That's a level it hasn't seen since the post-World War II era.

Subway ridership grew across every borough, but Brooklyn saw the largest increase with a 2.7 percent rise in average weekday ridership.

The Wall Street Journal reports that "ridership growth was seen citywide across all boroughs and all lines, the MTA said, but the highest percentage increases were seen in neighborhoods experiencing both rapid residential development and population increases, such as Bushwick in Brooklyn and Long Island City in Queens, the agency said.

Public transit ridership is up across the US in recent years as the economy picks up and more people are working. The American Public Transportation Association reported that in 2012聽U.S. transit ridership rose 1.49 percent, with passengers taking 10.52 million trips on trains, buses and commuter rail, according to Reuters.

The increase was universal across the different modes of transit.聽There were 1.42 percent more trips on heavy rail such as subways, 4.47 percent more on light rail, and 0.52 percent more on commuter rail than in 2011. Meanwhile, bus ridership grew 1.2 percent. Some of the light rail rise came from cities expanding or creating lines.