Veronique Hakim, the authority’s interim executive director, called the Second Avenue line a “great success” at a board meeting last week. Riders were clearly shifting from Lexington Avenue to the new line, she said.

“We’re pleased to be on track to meet our ridership projections,” she said.

On Wednesday, officials plan to release the authority’s ridership figures, which rely on MetroCard swipes as well as hand counts by staff members at stations that were not part of the data analyzed by The Times. The Second Avenue subway line hit 155,000 daily riders last Friday, the authority found. During the fourth week of January, officials at the authority said, daily ridership at 86th Street on the Lexington Avenue line fell to about 95,000 on average, from about 132,000 in 2016.

The Times analysis was based on MetroCard swipes and exits through turnstiles at stations on the two subway lines during the first 27 days of this year and from the Lexington Avenue line during the same period last year.

As a No. 5 train pulled into the 86th Street station on a recent morning, a steady flow of riders gathered on the platform. They rushed on board the train, with a wall of people stuffed near the entrance as the doors closed.

But the current crowds are far smaller than the hordes of riders at the station last year, said Donika Goci, 33, who works at an investment bank and lives on the Upper East Side.

“There are a lot less people on the platform,” she said.

Despite the reduced crowding, many New Yorkers who live near the new Second Avenue subway stops were happy that they had switched lines.