[VivaLFuego]

As implied above, 95th station, and the Dan Ryan branch in general, peaked in ridership around the late 70s/early 80s. Demand on the branch was then much more oriented around peak commuters, with the NB peak-hour AM passenger flow from the Dan Ryan the highest in the system (slightly higher than SB through the State Subway on what is now the Red Line), and the many bus routes feeding into 95th accordingly ran at incredibly high weekday rush period frequencies.

At quick glance, emathias' 2000 system ridership figure appears to be the turnstile count rather than total boardings (inclusive of within-station transfers), whereas the 2012 figure is daily boardings. The comparable 2000 figure would roughly be about 590k rail system boardings per average weekday, which is still indicative of a prolonged period of growth in the 2000s.

The 1978 figure looks way off, though --- the old reports I have show a daily turnstile count of over 550k, which actually was the highest annual average in that era. Since there were fewer enclosed transfer points then, the daily boardings total was probably [roughly speaking] in the 600-625k range... though, that was before construction of the 8-mile O'Hare extension and the 9-mile Orange Line, so it was a smaller system.

The years 1977-1985 were very good for CTA ridership between (1) the oil shocks, (2) the lack of any EPA mileage standards for cars before model year 1978, (3) generally declining/stagnant real earnings among the middle & working classes due to high inflation, (4) the 1973 RTA Act providing for very low transit fares, especially in real terms [see #3], and (5) restrictions on Loop parking supply due to non-attainment of federal air quality standards. As of each of those eased/reversed throughout the 1980s, it was a steady downhill for ridership before bottoming out in the early to mid 90s.