Transportation Nation
NYC Subway, We Love You, But You're Letting Us Down
According to the MTA's just-released analysis of 2015 subway ridership, the city's subway system is experiencing a boom it hasn't seen since the post-war era.
Last year, the system served up 1.763 billion rides — the most since 1948 (when there were elevated lines to serve riders as well). Forty-nine weekdays had ridership in excess of six million.
But the growth has attendant problems. "Even minor disruptions now can create major delays,” said New York City Transit president Ronnie Hakim, and the latest statistics confirm that what riders (and the state comptroller) know well: you are waiting longer for trains, and the cars are breaking down more frequently.
System-wide, only about 76 percent of subway lines met service standards. Every single one of the numbered lines got worse over the past 12 months (see p. 31). Outdated signal equipment and an aging fleet are ill-equipped to handle the growing ridership. During Monday's MTA committee meetings, board member Andrew Albert called the performance of some of the legacy trains "miserable."
MTA board member Charles Moerdler noted the Lexington Line was particularly beset by problems. "On the number 4 line, it's 60 percent. On the number 5, it's 61 percent, on the number 6, it's 58 percent. That fails! That's a failing grade!"
"There is no single solution, no single one thing that is going to push us over the goal line," said Hakim on Monday. She talked about the need to implement communications-based train control and purchase new subway cars — big-ticket items whose funding is tied up in the agency's yet-to-be-approved five-year capital program. "We do need to make better use of some of our available resources," she said.
Hakim said the MTA would continue to refine ways to get people on and off trains faster.