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> New York City’s subway, meanwhile, is falling apart. If you are a regular rider, you know this firsthand. But even if you aren’t, it has probably become diffi

> New York City’s subway, meanwhile, is falling apart. If you are a regular rider, you know this firsthand. But even if you aren’t, it has probably become difficult to ignore all the stories about the system’s failure: the F train that was trapped between stations for close to an hour without power or air conditioning, the Q train that derailed in Brooklyn, the track fire on the A line in Harlem that sent nine passengers to the hospital. I am a regular rider, and there are very few facts and a lot of anecdotes thrown out here. I do not think the subway is falling apart -- there are always problems, but in general, I see incremental improvement; we see more newer cars as the old ones phase out, and we're getting train arrival information throughout the system. Crowding is a problem as demographics shift, but trains run frequently during rush hours. From what I hear, the L is the worst for overcrowding, but most of the other lines handle the capacity fine. The problems that we continually have with broken switches and rerouted trains and shutdowns, etc., don't seem to have gotten worse, but are just a perennial problem. I can totally see why it has been hard to fund it, because despite articles like this trying to stir up things, things really don't seem to be getting worse. That's not to say things are great -- you only have to ride another subway pretty much anywhere to see what you're missing out on. But the NYT's attempt to paint the subway as being on the precipice of a disaster rings false and only serves to hurt the cause of improving the subway by creating an air of alarmism.

ixtli 9y ago
I am also a long-time resident and consistent subway rider and I agree with the above. The subway DOES need a massive cash injection to allow it to perform to the standards we'd all like. The city also DOES need to reconcile the fact that it costs 10x the amount as any other city to repair because of inflated labor costs. It is NOT "falling apart" in some Fallout-style postapocalypsis. If we need to convince people that the sky is literally falling to get them to care then nothing is going to change and certainly not for the better.
- pcurve 9y ago
  I've been riding the subway for decades. I would say compared to couple decades ago, NYC subway is a lot better. Yeah it smells like piss on Time Square platform during heat of summer and compared to subway systems in Europe, Japan, Seoul, the station looks like half-baked boondoggle. But hey, I've been saying Hi to the same piece of dust ball on ceiling pipe since 1996 thanks to MTA's total refusal to vacuum what's over your head. I've watched that dust ball blossom into a fine young lady. I may even propose to her this year, all thanks to MTA.
  - m_fayer 9y ago
    Another regular rider here who often uses the system outside of rush hour. And it has gotten way worse after Sandy. People keep saying that it's not so bad during rush hour, as if we shouldn't expect a 9pm ride to be any better than a stressful crapshoot. I don't get why we should have such low standards.
alokedesai 9y ago
you're right in that the subway isn't falling apart, but it's definitely gotten significantly worse over the past couple years. See https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/28/nyregion/subway-delays-overcrowding.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/28/nyregion/subw... for data of significant decreases in on-time peformance and number of delays over the past couple of years.
- andrewla 9y ago
  I find this data unconvincing, since it talks about "delays" and compares to the "schedule". Since the schedule can change, it's hard to figure out whether this is a problem with overly aggressive schedules or with actual train slowdowns. As a counterpoint to the "delays", the article for this thread says > As ridership grew from 2012 to 2016, the end-to-end running time during peak hours on the numbered lines increased by more than six minutes Six minutes seems like ... well, like nothing, really. If that's the extent of the problem, then I don't see a crisis brewing, I just see things getting a little worse. That's not to say that we don't need to make things better, but let's frame the discussion around the actual problems.
  - WoodenChair 9y ago
    6 minutes is a lot when it affects millions of people. 6 minutes * 1,000,000 riders is 6,000,000 minutes a day of lost productivity. What is the GDP impact of that?
betterunix2 9y ago
"The problems that we continually have with broken switches and rerouted trains and shutdowns, etc., don't seem to have gotten worse, but are just a perennial problem" I have a close relative who works for the MTA (has been there for decades), who says that as far as things breaking down it is worse today compared to the 90s.
airstrike 9y ago
The 4-5-6 certainly do not handle capacity fine during rush hours...
- andrewla 9y ago
  I lived near the 51st and Lexington stop until about 2010, and took the 6 every day downtown. Even then, I would often have to wait for two or three trains before I could shove my way on to a train. My point is not that things aren't bad or that we shouldn't improve them, just that it doesn't seem like a brewing crisis. Not to mention that I have no idea how to fix this (other than get the Second Avenue line finished after a hundred years of trying, or the new articulated cars that they're talking about) -- most of the time when I was trying to get on a train, you could literally see the next train at the uptown stop -- they might be able to space them closer with improved signaling (since they wouldn't have to hold in the previous station) but that benefit seems pretty dubious.
  - nasredin 9y ago
    One of the things TFA mentions is installing modern switches. Of all the solutions it's seems the least difficult and disruptive. It seems like a problem of will and not technology. Maybe NYC subway needs some huge disruptive event to motivate people to do something. (FBI I'm not talking about that, please don't visit me!)

ixtli 9y ago

I am also a long-time resident and consistent subway rider and I agree with the above. The subway DOES need a massive cash injection to allow it to perform to the standards we'd all like. The city also DOES need to reconcile the fact that it costs 10x the amount as any other city to repair because of inflated labor costs. It is NOT "falling apart" in some Fallout-style postapocalypsis. If we need to convince people that the sky is literally falling to get them to care then nothing is going to change and certainly not for the better.

pcurve 9y ago
I've been riding the subway for decades. I would say compared to couple decades ago, NYC subway is a lot better. Yeah it smells like piss on Time Square platform during heat of summer and compared to subway systems in Europe, Japan, Seoul, the station looks like half-baked boondoggle. But hey, I've been saying Hi to the same piece of dust ball on ceiling pipe since 1996 thanks to MTA's total refusal to vacuum what's over your head. I've watched that dust ball blossom into a fine young lady. I may even propose to her this year, all thanks to MTA.
- m_fayer 9y ago
  Another regular rider here who often uses the system outside of rush hour. And it has gotten way worse after Sandy. People keep saying that it's not so bad during rush hour, as if we shouldn't expect a 9pm ride to be any better than a stressful crapshoot. I don't get why we should have such low standards.

alokedesai 9y ago

you're right in that the subway isn't falling apart, but it's definitely gotten significantly worse over the past couple years. See https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/28/nyregion/subway-delays-overcrowding.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/28/nyregion/subw... for data of significant decreases in on-time peformance and number of delays over the past couple of years.

andrewla 9y ago
I find this data unconvincing, since it talks about "delays" and compares to the "schedule". Since the schedule can change, it's hard to figure out whether this is a problem with overly aggressive schedules or with actual train slowdowns. As a counterpoint to the "delays", the article for this thread says > As ridership grew from 2012 to 2016, the end-to-end running time during peak hours on the numbered lines increased by more than six minutes Six minutes seems like ... well, like nothing, really. If that's the extent of the problem, then I don't see a crisis brewing, I just see things getting a little worse. That's not to say that we don't need to make things better, but let's frame the discussion around the actual problems.
- WoodenChair 9y ago
  6 minutes is a lot when it affects millions of people. 6 minutes * 1,000,000 riders is 6,000,000 minutes a day of lost productivity. What is the GDP impact of that?

betterunix2 9y ago

"The problems that we continually have with broken switches and rerouted trains and shutdowns, etc., don't seem to have gotten worse, but are just a perennial problem" I have a close relative who works for the MTA (has been there for decades), who says that as far as things breaking down it is worse today compared to the 90s.

airstrike 9y ago

The 4-5-6 certainly do not handle capacity fine during rush hours...

andrewla 9y ago
I lived near the 51st and Lexington stop until about 2010, and took the 6 every day downtown. Even then, I would often have to wait for two or three trains before I could shove my way on to a train. My point is not that things aren't bad or that we shouldn't improve them, just that it doesn't seem like a brewing crisis. Not to mention that I have no idea how to fix this (other than get the Second Avenue line finished after a hundred years of trying, or the new articulated cars that they're talking about) -- most of the time when I was trying to get on a train, you could literally see the next train at the uptown stop -- they might be able to space them closer with improved signaling (since they wouldn't have to hold in the previous station) but that benefit seems pretty dubious.
- nasredin 9y ago
  One of the things TFA mentions is installing modern switches. Of all the solutions it's seems the least difficult and disruptive. It seems like a problem of will and not technology. Maybe NYC subway needs some huge disruptive event to motivate people to do something. (FBI I'm not talking about that, please don't visit me!)