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The New York City Subway is one of the most vital links to the NYC transit system. This article is important in that it shines a light into where the MTA's allotted money actually goes. It shows that insider deals and poor financing structures are the root cause of the issues with the subway system. Raising fares alone cannot fix the connectivity issues that disinvestment has created on the New York City Subway.

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How Did New York's Trains Get so Bad? | NYT

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New York City Subway

Owner
City of New York

Area served

The Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens

Locale

New York City

Transit type
Rapid transit

Number of lines

36 lines[note 1]
28 services
(1 planned)[note 2]

Number of stations

472[1] ( MTA total count)[note 3][note 4]
424 unique stations[note 4][1] (when compared to international standards)
14 planned[note 3]

Annual ridership

1,793,073,000[6]: 2  [note 5] (2022)

Website

new.mta.info/agency/new-york-city-transit

Began operation

October 27, 1904; 118 years ago
( Original subway)

July 3, 1868; 155 years ago [8]
(first elevated, rapid transit operation)

October 9, 1863; 159 years ago
(first railroad operation)[note 6]

Operator(s)

New York City Transit Authority (NYCTA)

Number of vehicles

6,418[9]

Headway

Peak hours: 6-12 minutes[10]
Off-peak: 12-20 minutes[10]

System length

248 mi (399 km)[11]
(route length)
665 mi (1,070 km)[11]
(track length, revenue)
850 mi (1,370 km)[12]
(track length, total)

Track gauge

4 ft 8+ 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) [12]standard gauge

Electrification

Third rail, 600-650 V DC (normally 625V)[12][13]

Average speed

17.4 mph (28.0 km/h)[14]

Top speed

55 mph (89 km/h)[14]

System map

The New York City Subway is a rapid transit system in the New York City boroughs of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx. It is owned by the government of New York City and leased to the New York City Transit Authority, an affiliate agency of the state-run Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). Opened on October 27, 1904, the New York City Subway is one of the world's oldest public transit systems, one of the most-used, and the one with the most stations, with 472 stations in operation (424, if stations connected by transfers are counted as single stations).

The system has operated 24/7 service every day of the year throughout most of its history, barring emergencies and disasters. By annual ridership, the New York City Subway is the busiest rapid transit system in both the Western Hemisphere and the Western world, as well as the eleventh-busiest rapid transit rail system in the world. The subway carried 1,793,073,000 riders in 2022. On October 29, 2015, more than 6.2 million people rode the subway system, establishing the highest single-day ridership since ridership was regularly monitored in 1985.

The system is also one of the world's longest. Overall, the system contains 248 miles (399 km) of routes, translating into 665 miles (1,070 km) of revenue track and a total of 850 miles (1,370 km) including non-revenue trackage. Of the system's 28 routes or "services" (which usually share track or "lines" with other services), 25 pass through Manhattan, the exceptions being the G train, the Franklin Avenue Shuttle, and the Rockaway Park Shuttle. Large portions of the subway outside Manhattan are elevated, on embankments, or in open cuts, and a few stretches of track run at ground level. In total, 40% of track is above ground. Many lines and stations have both express and local services. These lines have three or four tracks. Normally, the outer two are used by local trains, while the inner one or two are used by express trains. Stations served by express trains are typically major transfer points or destinations.

As of 2018, the New York City Subway's budgetary burden for expenditures was $8.7 billion, supported by collection of fares, bridge tolls, and earmarked regional taxes and fees, as well as direct funding from state and local governments.

The City Hall station of the IRT Lexington Avenue Line, part of the first underground line of the subway that opened on October 27, 1904

Alfred Ely Beach built the first demonstration for an underground transit system in New York City in 1869 and opened it in February 1870. His Beach Pneumatic Transit only extended 312 feet (95 m) under Broadway in Lower Manhattan operating from Warren Street to Murray Street and exhibited his idea for an atmospheric railway as a subway. The tunnel was never extended for political and financial reasons. Today, no part of this line remains as the tunnel was completely within the limits of the present-day City Hall station under Broadway.

The Great Blizzard of 1888 helped demonstrate the benefits of an underground transportation system. A plan for the construction of the subway was approved in 1894, and construction began in 1900. Even though the underground portions of the subway had yet to be built, several above-ground segments of the modern-day New York City Subway system were already in service by then. The oldest structure still in use opened in 1885 as part of the BMT Lexington Avenue Line in Brooklyn and is now part of the BMT Jamaica Line. The oldest right-of-way, which is part of the BMT West End Line near Coney Island Creek, was in use in 1864 as a steam railroad called the Brooklyn, Bath and Coney Island Rail Road.

The first underground line of the subway opened on October 27, 1904, built by the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) almost 36 years after the opening of the first elevated line in New York City (which became the IRT Ninth Avenue Line). The 9.1-mile (14.6 km) subway line, then called the "Manhattan Main Line", ran from City Hall station northward under Lafayette Street (then named Elm Street) and Park Avenue (then named Fourth Avenue) before turning westward at 42nd Street. It then curved northward again at Times Square, continuing under Broadway before terminating at 145th Street station in Harlem. Its operation was leased to the Interborough Rapid Transit Company and over 150,000 passengers paid the 5¢ fare to ride it on the first day of operation.

By the late 1900s and early 1910s, the lines had been consolidated into two privately owned systems, the IRT and the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company (BRT, later Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit Corporation, BMT). The city built most of the lines and leased them to the companies. The first line of the city-owned and operated Independent Subway System (IND) opened in 1932. This system was intended to compete with the private systems and allow some of the elevated railways to be torn down but stayed within the core of the city due to its small startup capital. This required it to be run 'at cost', necessitating fares up to double the five-cent fare of the time.

In 1940, the city bought the two private systems. Some elevated lines ceased service immediately while others closed soon after. Integration was slow, but several connections were built between the IND and BMT. These now operate as one division, called the B Division. Since the former IRT tunnels are narrower, have sharper curves, and shorter station platforms, they cannot accommodate B Division cars, and the former IRT remains its own division, the A Division. Many passenger transfers between stations of all three former companies have been created, allowing the entire network to be treated as a single unit.

During the late 1940s, the system recorded high ridership, and on December 23, 1946, the system-wide record of 8,872,249 fares was set.

The New York City Transit Authority (NYCTA), a public authority presided by New York City, was created in 1953 to take over subway, bus, and streetcar operations from the city, and placed under control of the state-level Metropolitan Transportation Authority in 1968.

Organized in 1934 by transit workers of the BRT, IRT, and IND, the Transport Workers Union of America Local 100 remains the largest and most influential local of the labor unions. Since the union's founding, there have been three union strikes over contract disputes with the MTA: 12 days in 1966, 11 days in 1980, and three days in 2005.

By the 1970s and 1980s, the New York City Subway was at an all-time low. Ridership had dropped to 1910s levels, and graffiti and crime were rampant. Maintenance was poor, and delays and track problems were common. Still, the NYCTA managed to open six new subway stations in the 1980s, make the current fleet of subway cars graffiti-free, as well as order 1,775 new subway cars. By the early 1990s, conditions had improved significantly, although maintenance backlogs accumulated during those 20 years are still being fixed today.

Entering the 21st century, progress continued despite several disasters. The September 11 attacks resulted in service disruptions on lines running through Lower Manhattan, particularly the IRT Broadway-Seventh Avenue Line, which ran directly underneath the World Trade Center. Sections of the tunnel, as well as the Cortlandt Street station, which was directly underneath the Twin Towers, were severely damaged. Rebuilding required the suspension of service on that line south of Chambers Street. Ten other nearby stations were closed for cleanup. By March 2002, seven of those stations had reopened. Except for Cortlandt Street, the rest reopened in September 2002, along with service south of Chambers Street. Cortlandt Street reopened in September 2018.

In October 2012, Hurricane Sandy flooded several underwater tunnels and other facilities near New York Harbor, as well as trackage over Jamaica Bay. The immediate damage was fixed within six months, but long-term resiliency and rehabilitation projects continue. The recovery projects after the hurricane included the restoration of the new South Ferry station from 2012 to 2017; the full closure of the Montague Street Tunnel from 2013 to 2014; and the partial 14th Street Tunnel shutdown from 2019 to 2020.

When the IRT subway debuted in 1904, the typical tunnel construction method was cut-and-cover. The street was torn up to dig the tunnel below before being rebuilt from above. Traffic on the street above would be interrupted due to the digging up of the street. Temporary steel and wooden bridges carried surface traffic above the construction.

Contractors in this type of construction faced many obstacles, both natural and human-made. They had to deal with rock formations and groundwater, which required pumps. Twelve miles of sewers, as well as water and gas mains, electric conduits, and steam pipes had to be rerouted. Street railways had to be torn up to allow the work. The foundations of tall buildings often ran near the subway construction, and in some cases needed underpinning to ensure stability.

This method worked well for digging soft dirt and gravel near the street surface. Tunnelling shields were required for deeper sections, such as the Harlem and East River tunnels, which used cast-iron tubes. Rock or concrete-lined tunnels were used on segments from 33rd to 42nd streets under Park Avenue; 116th to 120th Streets under Broadway; 145th to Dyckman Streets (Fort George) under Broadway and St. Nicholas Avenue; and 96th Street and Broadway to Central Park North and Lenox Avenue.

About 40% of the subway system runs on surface or elevated tracks, including steel or cast-iron elevated structures, concrete viaducts, embankments, open cuts and surface routes. As of 2019, there are 168 miles (270 km) of elevated tracks. All of these construction methods are completely grade-separated from road and pedestrian crossings, and most crossings of two subway tracks are grade-separated with flying junctions. The sole exceptions of at-grade junctions of two lines in regular service are the 142nd Street and Myrtle Avenue junctions, whose tracks intersect at the same level, as well as the same-direction pairs of tracks on the IRT Eastern Parkway Line at Rogers Junction.

More recent projects use tunnel boring machines, which increase the cost. They minimize disruption at street level and avoid already existing utilities. Examples of such projects include the extension of the IRT Flushing Line and the IND Second Avenue Line.

Since the opening of the original New York City Subway line in 1904, multiple official and planning agencies have proposed numerous extensions to the subway system. One of the more expansive proposals was the " IND Second System", part of a plan to construct new subway lines in addition to taking over existing subway lines and railroad rights-of-way. The most grandiose IND Second Subway plan, conceived in 1929, was to be part of the city-operated IND, and was to comprise almost of the current subway system. By 1939, with unification planned, all three systems were included within the plan, which was ultimately never carried out. Many different plans were proposed over the years of the subway's existence, but expansion of the subway system mostly stopped during World War II.

After the IND Sixth Avenue Line was completed in 1940, the city went into great debt, and only 33 new stations have been added to the system since, nineteen of which were part of defunct railways that already existed. Five stations were on the abandoned New York, Westchester and Boston Railway, which was incorporated into the system in 1941 as the IRT Dyre Avenue Line. Fourteen more stations were on the abandoned LIRR Rockaway Beach Branch (now the IND Rockaway Line), which opened in 1955. Two stations ( 57th Street and Grand Street) were part of the Chrystie Street Connection, and opened in 1968; the Harlem-148th Street terminal opened that same year in an unrelated project.

Six were built as part of a 1968 plan: three on the Archer Avenue Lines, opened in 1988, and three on the 63rd Street Lines, opened in 1989. The new South Ferry station was built and connected to the existing Whitehall Street-South Ferry station in 2009. The one-stop 7 Subway Extension to the west side of Manhattan, consisting of the 34th Street-Hudson Yards station, was opened in 2015, and three stations on the Second Avenue Subway in the Upper East Side were opened in the beginning of 2017.

Many rapid transit systems run relatively static routings, so that a train "line" is more or less synonymous with a train "route". In New York City, routings change often, for various reasons. Within the nomenclature of the subway, the "line" describes the physical railroad track or series of tracks that a train "route" uses on its way from one terminal to another. "Routes" (also called "services") are distinguished by a letter or a number and "lines" have names. Trains display their route designation.

There are 28 train services in the subway system, including three short shuttles. Each route has a color and a local or express designation representing the Manhattan trunk line of the service. New York City residents seldom refer to services by color (e.g., "blue line" or "green line") but out-of-towners and tourists often do.

Though the subway system operates on a 24-hour basis, during late night hours some of the designated routes do not run, run as a shorter route (often referred to as the "shuttle train" version of its full-length counterpart) or run with a different stopping pattern. These are usually indicated by smaller, secondary route signage on station platforms. Because there is no nightly system shutdown for maintenance, tracks and stations must be maintained while the system is operating. This work sometimes necessitates service changes during midday, overnight hours, and weekends.

When parts of lines are temporarily shut down for construction purposes, the transit authority can substitute free shuttle buses (using MTA Regional Bus Operations bus fleet) to replace the routes that would normally run on these lines. The Transit Authority announces planned service changes through its website, via placards that are posted on station and interior subway-car walls, and through its Twitter page.

Current official transit maps of the New York City Subway are based on a 1979 design by Michael Hertz Associates. The maps are not geographically accurate due to the complexity of the system (Manhattan being the smallest borough, but having the most services), but they do show major city streets as an aid to navigation. The newest edition took effect on June 27, 2010, and makes Manhattan bigger and Staten Island smaller, with minor tweaks happening to the map when more permanent changes occur.

A late night-only version of the map was introduced on January 30, 2012. On September 16, 2011, the MTA introduced a Vignelli-style interactive subway map, "The Weekender", to its website; as the title suggests, the online map provides information about any planned work, from late Friday night to early Monday morning.

Several privately produced schematics are available online or in printed form, such as those by Hagstrom Map.

7 train arriving at Vernon Boulevard - Jackson Avenue station (43s)

Out of the 472 stations, 470 are served 24 hours a day. Underground stations in the New York City Subway are typically accessed by staircases going down from street level. Many of these staircases are painted in a common shade of green, with slight or significant variations in design. Other stations have unique entrances reflective of their location or date of construction. Several station entrance stairs, for example, are built into adjacent buildings. Nearly all station entrances feature color-coded globe or square lamps signifying their status as an entrance. The current number of stations is smaller than the peak of the system. In addition to the demolition of former elevated lines, which collectively have resulted in the demolition of over a hundred stations, other closed stations and unused portions of existing stations remain in parts of the system.

Many stations in the subway system have mezzanines. Mezzanines allow for passengers to enter from multiple locations at an intersection and proceed to the correct platform without having to cross the street before entering. Inside mezzanines are fare control areas, where passengers physically pay their fare to enter the subway system. In many older stations, the fare control area is at platform level with no mezzanine crossovers. Many elevated stations also have platform-level fare control with no common station house between directions of service.

Upon entering a station, passengers may use station booths (formerly known as token booths) or vending machines to buy their fare, which is currently stored in a MetroCard. Each station has at least one booth, typically located at the busiest entrance. After swiping the card at a turnstile, customers enter the fare-controlled area of the station and continue to the platforms. Inside fare control are "Off-Hours Waiting Areas", which consist of benches and are identified by a yellow sign.

A typical subway station has waiting platforms ranging from 480 to 600 feet (150 to 180 m) long. Some are longer. Platforms of former commuter rail stations-such as those on the IND Rockaway Line, are even longer. With the many different lines in the system, one platform often serves more than one service. Passengers need to look at the overhead signs to see which trains stop there and when, and at the arriving train to identify it.

There are several common platform configurations. On a double track line, a station may have one center island platform used for trains in both directions, or two side platforms, one for each direction. For lines with three or four tracks with express service, local stops will have side platforms and the middle one or two tracks will not stop at the station. On these lines, express stations typically have two island platforms, one for each direction. Each island platform provides a cross-platform interchange between local and express services. Some four-track lines with express service have two tracks each on two levels and use both island and side platforms.

Since the majority of the system was built before 1990, the year the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) went into effect, many New York City Subway stations were not designed to be accessible to all. Since then, elevators have been built in newly constructed stations to comply with the ADA. (Most grade-level stations required little modification to meet ADA standards.) Many accessible stations have AutoGate access. In addition, the MTA identified "key stations", high-traffic and/or geographically important stations, which must conform to the ADA when they are extensively renovated. Under plans from the MTA in 2016, the number of ADA accessible stations would go up to 144 by 2020, but as of September 2021, there were only 138 ADA-accessible stations.

Over the years, the MTA has been involved in a number of lawsuits over the lack of accessibility in its stations. The Eastern Paralyzed Veterans Association filed what may have been the first of these suits in 1979, based on state law. The lawsuits have relied on a number of different legal bases, but most have centered around the MTA's failure to include accessibility as a part of its plans for remodeling various stations. As of January 2022, ADA-accessibility projects are expected to be started or completed at 51 stations as part of the 2020-2024 Capital Program. This would allow one of every two to four stations on every line to be accessible, so that all non-accessible stops would be a maximum of two stops from an accessible station.

In 2022, the MTA agreed in a settlement to make 95 percent of subway and Staten Island Railway stations accessible by 2055. By comparison, all but one of Boston's MBTA subway stations are accessible, the Chicago "L" plans all stations to be accessible in the 2030s, the Toronto subway will be fully accessible by 2025, and Montreal Metro plans all stations to be accessible by 2038. Both the Boston and Chicago systems are as old or older than the New York City Subway, though all of these systems have fewer stations than the New York City Subway. Newer systems like the Washington Metro and Bay Area Rapid Transit have been fully accessible from their opening in the 1970s.

As of November 2016, the New York City Subway has 6418 cars on the roster. A typical New York City Subway train consists of 8 to 11 cars, although shuttles can have as few as two, and the train can range from 150 to 600 feet (46 to 183 m) in length.

The system maintains two separate fleets of cars, one for the A Division routes and another for the B Division routes. A Division equipment is approximately 8 feet 9 inches (2.67 m) wide and 51 feet 4 inches (15.65 m) long, whereas B Division equipment is about 10 feet (3.05 m) wide and either 60 feet 6 inches (18.44 m) or 75 feet (22.86 m) long. The different lengths for the B Division fleet are necessary because 75-foot cars can not be used over the BMT Eastern Division.

Cars purchased by the City of New York since the inception of the IND and the other divisions beginning in 1948 are identified by the letter "R" followed by a number; e.g.: R32. This number is the contract number under which the cars were purchased. Cars with nearby contract numbers (e.g.: R1 through R9, or R26 through R29, or R143 through R179) may be relatively identical, despite being purchased under different contracts and possibly built by different manufacturers.

From 1999 to 2019, the R142, R142A, R143, R160, R179 and R188 were placed into service. These cars are collectively known as New Technology Trains (NTTs) due to modern innovations such as LED and LCD route signs and information screens, as well as recorded train announcements and the ability to facilitate Communication-Based Train Control (CBTC).

As part of the 2017-2020 MTA Financial Plan, 600 subway cars will have electronic display signs installed to improve customer experience.

Riders pay a single fare to enter the subway system and may transfer between trains at no extra cost until they exit via station turnstiles; the fare is a flat rate regardless of how far or how long the rider travels. Thus, riders must swipe their MetroCard or tap a contactless payment card or smartphone on an OMNY reader upon entering the subway system, but not a second time upon leaving.

As of August 2023, nearly all fares are paid by MetroCard or OMNY.As of August 2023, the base fare is $2.90. Fares can be paid with most credit or debit cards using the OMNY readers, with a reusable MetroCard, or with single-use tickets. The MTA offers 7-day and 30-day unlimited ride programs that can lower the effective per-ride fare significantly. Reduced fares are available for the elderly and people with disabilities.

Fares were stored in a money room at 370 Jay Street in Downtown Brooklyn starting in 1951, when the building opened as a headquarters for the New York City Board of Transportation. The building is close to the lines of all three subway divisions (the IRT, BMT, and IND) and thus was a convenient location to collect fares, including tokens and cash, via money trains. Passageways from the subway stations, including a visible door in the Jay Street IND station, lead to a money sorting room in the basement of the building. The money trains were replaced by armored trucks in 2006.

In November 1993, a fare system called the MetroCard was introduced, which allows riders to use magnetic stripe cards that store the value equal to the amount paid to a subway station booth clerk or vending machine. The MetroCard was enhanced in 1997 to allow passengers to make free transfers between subways and buses within two hours; several MetroCard-only transfers between subway stations were added in 2001. With the addition of unlimited-ride MetroCards in 1998, the New York City Transit system was the last major transit system in the United States with the exception of BART in San Francisco to introduce passes for unlimited bus and rapid transit travel. Unlimited-ride MetroCards are available for 7-day and 30-day periods. One-day "Fun Pass" and 14-day cards were also introduced, but have since been discontinued.

On October 23, 2017, it was announced that the MetroCard would be phased out and replaced by OMNY, a contactless fare payment system by San Diego-based Cubic Transportation Systems, with fare payment being made using Apple Pay, Google Pay, debit/credit cards with near-field communication technology, or radio-frequency identification cards. As of December 31, 2020, OMNY is available on all MTA buses and at all subway stations. Support of the MetroCard is intended to remain until 2024.

Since the late 20th century, the MTA has started several projects to maintain and improve the subway. In the 1990s, it started converting the BMT Canarsie Line to use communications-based train control, utilizing a moving block signal system that allowed more trains to use the tracks and thus increasing passenger capacity. After the Canarsie Line tests were successful, the MTA expanded the automation program in the 2000s and 2010s to include other lines. As part of another program called FASTRACK, the MTA started closing sections of lines during weekday nights in 2012, in order to allow workers to clean these lines without being hindered by train movements. It expanded the program beyond Manhattan the next year after noticing how efficient the FASTRACK program was compared to previous service diversions. In 2015, the MTA announced a wide-ranging improvement program as part of the 2015-2019 Capital Program. Thirty stations would be extensively rebuilt under the Enhanced Station Initiative, and new R211 subway cars would be able to fit more passengers.

The MTA has also started some projects to improve passenger amenities. It added train arrival "countdown clocks" to most A Division stations (except on the IRT Flushing Line, serving the and ​ trains) and the BMT Canarsie Line ( train) by late 2011, allowing passengers on these routes to see train arrival times using real-time data. A similar countdown-clock project for the B Division and the Flushing Line was deferred until 2016, when a new Bluetooth-based clock system was tested successfully. Beginning in 2011, the MTA also started "Help Point" to aid with emergency calls or station agent assistance. The Help Point project was deemed successful, and the MTA subsequently installed Help Points in all stations. Interactive touchscreen "On The Go! Travel Station" kiosks, which give station advisories, itineraries, and timetables, were installed starting in 2011, with the program also being expanded after a successful pilot. Cellular phone and wireless data in stations, first installed in 2011 as part of yet another pilot program, was also expanded systemwide due to positive passenger feedback. Finally, credit-card trials at several subway stations in 2006 and 2010 led to proposals for contactless payment to replace the aging MetroCard.

Signaling has evolved during a century of operation, and MTA uses a mixture of old and new systems. Most routes use block signaling but a few routes are also being retrofitted with communications-based train control (CBTC), which would allow trains to run without conductor input.

The system currently uses automatic block signaling with fixed wayside signals and automatic train stops to provide safe train operation across the whole system. The New York City Subway system has, for the most part, used block signaling since its first line opened, and many portions of the current signaling system were installed between the 1930s and 1960s. These signals work by preventing trains from entering a "block" occupied by another train. Typically, the blocks are 1,000 feet (300 m) long. Red and green lights show whether a block is occupied or vacant. The train's maximum speed will depend on how many blocks are open in front of it. The signals do not register a train's speed, nor where in the block the train is located.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the MTA began automating the subway by installing CBTC, which supplements rather than replaces the fixed-block signal system; it allows trains to operate more closely together with lower headways. The BMT Canarsie Line, on which the train runs, was chosen for pilot testing because it is a self-contained line that does not operate in conjunction with other lines. CBTC became operational in February 2009. Due to an unexpected ridership increase, the MTA ordered additional cars, and increased service from 15 trains to 26 trains per hour, an achievement beyond the capability of the block system. The total cost of the project was $340 million.

After the success of the BMT Canarsie Line automation, the IRT Flushing Line, carrying the and ​ trains, was next chosen to get CBTC. The plan is estimated to cost US$1.4 billion. It was scheduled to be completed in September 2017, but was delayed to November 2018.

By 2018, CBTC was in the process of being installed on several other routes as well, particularly the IND Queens Boulevard Line (, ​, , and ​ trains) and IND Culver Line (, , and ​ trains). Eventually, the MTA has plans to automate a much larger portion, using One Person Train Operation (OPTO) in conjunction with CBTC. At the current pace of installation, it would take 175 years for CBTC to be installed at a cost of $20 billion. The Flushing line operated at almost 30 trains an hour using the signal system installed when the line was built, but after CBTC is installed it is possible that an additional two trains per hour could be operated. In March 2018, New York City Transit Authority president Andy Byford announced a new plan for resignaling the subway with CBTC, which would only take 10 to 15 years, compared to the previous estimate of 40 years. This would cost $8 to $15 billion.

The New York City Subway uses a system known as Automatic Train Supervision (ATS) for dispatching and train routing on the A Division (the Flushing line and the trains used on the 7 and <7>​ services do not have ATS.) ATS allows dispatchers in the Operations Control Center (OCC) to see where trains are in real time, and whether each individual train is running early or late. Dispatchers can hold trains for connections, re-route trains, or short-turn trains to provide better service when a disruption causes delays.

Despite the signal system, there have been at least 64 major train accidents since 1918, when a train bound for South Ferry collided with two trains halted near Jackson Avenue on the IRT White Plains Road Line in the Bronx. Several accidents resulted when the train operator ran through red signals and rear-ended the subway train in front of it; this resulted from the signaling practice of "keying by", which allowed train operators to bypass red signals. The deadliest accident, the Malbone Street Wreck, occurred on November 1, 1918, beneath the intersection of Flatbush Avenue, Ocean Avenue, and Malbone Street (the latter of which is now Empire Boulevard) near the Prospect Park station of the then-BRT Brighton Line in Brooklyn, killing 93 people. As a result of accidents, especially more recent ones such as the 1995 Williamsburg Bridge crash, timer signals were installed. These signals have resulted in reduced speeds across the system. Accidents such as derailments are also due to broken equipment, such as the rails and the train itself.

Track safety and suicides

A portion of subway-related deaths in New York consists of suicides committed by jumping in front of an oncoming train. Between 1990 and 2003, 343 subway-related suicides were registered out of a citywide total of 7,394 (4.6%) and subway-related suicides increased by 30%, despite a decline in overall suicide numbers.

Due to increase in people hit by trains in 2013, in late 2013 and early 2014 the MTA started a test program at one undisclosed station, with four systems and strategies to eliminate the number of people hit by trains. Closed-circuit television cameras, a web of laser beams stretched across the tracks, radio frequencies transmitted across the tracks, and thermal imaging cameras focused on the station's tracks were set to be installed at that station. At the undisclosed station, tests have gone so well that these track protection systems will be installed system-wide as part of the 2015-2019 capital program.

The MTA also expressed interest in starting a pilot program to install platform edge doors. Several planned stations in the New York City Subway may possibly feature platform screen doors, including at future stations such as those part of the Second Avenue Subway. In October 2017, it was announced that as part of a pilot program, the Third Avenue station would be refitted with platform screen doors during the 14th Street Tunnel shutdown in 2019-2020. The $30 million for the platform edge door pilot program was diverted to another project in 2018. Following a series of incidents, MTA announced another PSD pilot program at three stations in February 2022: the and ​ trains' platform at Times Square; the train's platform at Sutphin Boulevard-Archer Avenue-JFK Airport; and the Third Avenue station. Numerous challenges come with platform doors. Some subway lines operate multiple subway car models, and their doors do not line up. Many platforms are not strong enough to hold the additional weight of a platform barrier, thus requiring extensive renovations if they were to be installed.

Crime rates have varied, but a downward trend has been observed starting in the 1990s up until 2014. In order to fight crime, various approaches have been used over the years, including an "If You See Something, Say Something" campaign and, starting in 2016, banning people who commit a crime in the subway system from entering the system for a certain length of time.

In July 1985, the Citizens Crime Commission of New York City published a study showing riders abandoning the subway, fearing the frequent robberies and generally bad circumstances. Crime rates in the subway and the city dropped in 1993, part of a larger citywide decrease in crime. Michael Bloomberg stated in a November 2004 press release: "Today, the subway system is safer than it has been at any time since we started tabulating subway crime statistics nearly 40 years ago." Although ridership decreased by 40 percent from 2019 to 2022, the number of crimes in the system remained roughly the same, prompting riders to express concerns over increased crime. The subway recorded eight murders in 2021, the highest annual total in 25 years; by October 2022, nine people had been murdered that year alone.

The subway system has been the target of some mass attacks, though such attacks are relatively rare. On December 11, 2017, there was an attempted bombing at the Times Square-42nd Street station, injuring four people including the attacker. On April 12, 2022, a shooting attack occurred on the N train, injuring 29 people including 10 who were shot.

After the September 11, 2001, attacks, the MTA exercised extreme caution regarding anyone taking photographs or recording video inside the system and proposed banning all photography and recording in a meeting around June 2004. Due to strong response from both the public and from civil rights groups, the rule of conduct was dropped. In November 2004, the MTA again put this rule up for approval, but was again denied, though many police officers and transit workers still confront or harass people taking photographs or videos. On April 3, 2009, the NYPD issued a directive to officers stating that it is legal to take pictures within the subway system so long as it is not accompanied with suspicious activity.

As of 2021, the MTA Rules of Conduct, Restricted Areas and Activities section states that anyone may take pictures or record videos, provided that they do not use any of three tools: lights, reflectors, or tripods. These three tools are permitted only by members of the press who have identification issued by the NYPD.

On July 22, 2005, in response to bombings in London, the New York City Police Department introduced a new policy of randomly searching passengers' bags as they approached turnstiles. The NYPD claimed that no form of racial profiling would be conducted when these searches actually took place. The NYPD has come under fire from some groups that claim purely random searches without any form of threat assessment would be ineffectual. Donna Lieberman, executive director of the NYCLU, stated, "This NYPD bag search policy is unprecedented, unlawful and ineffective. It is essential that police be aggressive in maintaining security in public transportation. But our very real concerns about terrorism do not justify the NYPD subjecting millions of innocent people to suspicionless searches in a way that does not identify any person seeking to engage in terrorist activity and is unlikely to have any meaningful deterrent effect on terrorist activity." The searches were upheld by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in MacWade v. Kelly.

On April 11, 2008, MTA received a Ferrara Fire Apparatus Hazardous Materials Response Truck, which went into service three days later. It will be used in the case of a chemical or bioterrorist attack.

Najibullah Zazi and others were arrested in September 2009 and pleaded guilty in 2010 to being part of an al-Qaeda plan to undertake suicide bombings on the New York City subway system.

2009-2010 budget cuts

The MTA faced a budget deficit of US$1.2 billion in 2009. This resulted in fare increases (three times from 2008 to 2010) and service reductions (including the elimination of two part-time subway services, the V and W). Several other routes were modified due to the deficit. The N was made a full-time local in Manhattan (in contrast to being a weekend local/weekday express before 2010), while the Q was extended nine stations north to Astoria-Ditmars Boulevard on weekdays, both to cover the discontinued W. The M was combined with the V, routing it over the Chrystie Street Connection, IND Sixth Avenue Line and IND Queens Boulevard Line to Forest Hills-71st Avenue on weekdays instead of via the BMT Fourth Avenue Line and BMT West End Line to Bay Parkway. The G was truncated to Court Square full-time. Construction headways on eleven routes were lengthened, and off-peak service on seven routes were lengthened.

2017-2021 state of emergency

In June 2017, Governor Andrew Cuomo signed an executive order declaring a state of emergency for the New York City Subway after a series of derailments, track fires, and overcrowding incidents. On June 27, 2017, thirty-nine people were injured when an A train derailed at 125th Street, damaging tracks and signals then catching fire. On July 21, 2017, the second set of wheels on a southbound Q train jumped the track near Brighton Beach, with nine people suffering injuries due to improper maintenance of the car in question. To solve the system's problems, the MTA officially announced the Genius Transit Challenge on June 28, where contestants could submit ideas to improve signals, communications infrastructure, or rolling stock.

On July 25, 2017, Chairman Joe Lhota announced a two-phase, $9 billion New York City Subway Action Plan to stabilize the subway system and to prevent the continuing decline of the system. The first phase, costing $836 million, consisted of five categories of improvements in Signal and Track Maintenance, Car Reliability, System Safety and Cleanliness, Customer Communication, and Critical Management Group. The $8 billion second phase would implement the winning proposals from the Genius Transit Challenge and fix more widespread problems. Six winning submissions for the Genius Transit Challenge were announced in March 2018.

In October 2017, city comptroller Scott Stringer released an analysis that subway delays could cost up to $389 million or $243.1 million or $170.2 million per year depending on the length of the delays. In November 2017, The New York Times published its investigation into the crisis. It found that the crisis had arisen as a result of financially unsound decisions by local and state politicians from both the Democratic and Republican parties. According to the Times, these decisions included overspending; overpaying unions and interest groups; advertising superficial improvement projects while ignoring more important infrastructure; and agreeing to high-interest loans that would have been unnecessary without these politicians' other interventions. By this time, the subway's 65% average on-time performance was the lowest among all major cities' transit systems, and every non-shuttle subway route's on-time performance had declined in the previous ten years. The state of emergency ended on June 30, 2021, after previously being renewed 49 times. As of October 2021, on-time performance across all routes is at 80.6 percent. Worsening subway reliability and service cuts in the early 2020s have been attributed to chronic mismanagement at the agency and a botched restructuring plan that was implemented under former Governor Andrew Cuomo.

Several subway lines have reached their operational limits in terms of train frequency and passengers, according to data released by the Transit Authority. As of June 2007, all of the A Division services except the 42nd Street Shuttle, as well as the E and L trains, were beyond capacity, as well as portions of the N train. In April 2013, New York magazine reported that the system was more crowded than it had been in the previous 66 years. The subway reached a daily ridership of 6 million for 29 days in 2014, and was expected to record a similar ridership level for 55 days in 2015; by comparison, in 2013, daily ridership never reached 6 million. In particular, the express tracks of the IRT Lexington Avenue Line and IND Queens Boulevard Line are noted for operating at full capacity during peak hours. The Long Island Rail Road East Side Access project was expected to bring many more commuters to the Lexington Avenue Line following its opening in January 2023, further overwhelming its capacity.

By early 2016, delays as a result of overcrowding were up to more than 20,000 every month, four times the amount in 2012. The overcrowded trains have resulted in an increase of assaults because of tense commuters. With less platform space, more passengers are forced to be on the edge of the platform resulting in the increased possibility of passengers falling on the track. The MTA is considering platform screen doors, which exist on the AirTrain JFK to prevent passengers falling onto the tracks. As of February 2022, platform screen doors were planned to be installed in three stations, following an increase in people being pushed onto the tracks.

The Second Avenue Subway, which has provisions for communications-based train control (CBTC), was built to relieve pressure on the Lexington Avenue Line (, ​, ​, and trains) by shifting an estimated 225,000 passengers. In addition, CBTC installation on the Flushing Line is expected to increase the rate of trains per hour on the and ​ trains, but little relief will come to other crowded lines until later. CBTC on the Flushing Line is expected to be completed in September 2017. The train, which is overcrowded during rush hours, already has CBTC operation. The installation of CBTC has reduced the L's running time by 3%. Even with CBTC, there are limits on the potential increased service. For L service to be increased further, a power upgrade as well as additional space for the L to turn around at its Manhattan terminus, Eighth Avenue, are needed.

The MTA is also seeking to implement CBTC on the IND Queens Boulevard Line. CBTC is to be installed on this line in five phases, with phase one ( 50th Street/8th Avenue and 47th-50th Streets-Rockefeller Center to Kew Gardens-Union Turnpike) being included in the 2010-2014 capital budget. The $205.8 million contract for the installment of phase one was awarded in 2015 to Siemens and Thales. Planning for phase one started in 2015, with major engineering work to follow in 2017. The total cost for the entire Queens Boulevard Line is estimated at over $900 million. The Queens Boulevard CBTC project is expected to be completed in 2021. Funding for CBTC on the IND Eighth Avenue Line is also provided in the 2015-2019 capital project. The MTA projects that 355 miles of track will receive CBTC signals by 2029, including most of the IND, as well as the IRT Lexington Avenue Line and the BMT Broadway Line. The MTA also is planning to install CBTC equipment on the IND Crosstown Line, the BMT Fourth Avenue Line and the BMT Brighton Line before 2025. As part of the installation of CBTC, the whole fleet of subway cars needs to be remodeled or replaced.

Due to an increase of ridership, the MTA has tried to increase capacity wherever possible by adding more frequent service, specifically during the evening hours. This increase is not likely to keep up with the growth of subway ridership. Some lines have capacity for additional trains during peak times, but there are too few subway cars for this additional service to be operated.

As part of the R211 subway car order, the MTA is planning to test a train of 10 open-gangway experimental prototype cars, which could increase capacity by up to 10% by utilizing space between cars. The order could be expanded to include up to 750 open-gangway cars.

The MTA is also testing smaller ideas on some services. Starting in late 2015, 100 "station platform controllers" were deployed for the F, 6, and 7 trains, to manage the flow of passengers on and off crowded trains during morning rush hours. There were a total of 129 such employees, who also answer passengers' questions about subway directions, rather than having conductors answer them and thus delaying the trains. In early 2017, the test was expanded to the afternoon peak period with an increase of 35 platform conductors. In November of the same year, 140 platform controllers and 90 conductors gained iPhone 6S devices so they could receive notifications of, and tell riders about, subway disruptions. Subway guards, the predecessors to the platform controllers, were first used during the Great Depression and World War II.

Shortened "next stop" announcements on trains were being tested on the 2 and 5 trains. "Step aside" signs on the platforms, reminding boarding passengers to let departing passengers off the train first, are being tested at Grand Central-42nd Street, 51st Street, and 86th Street on the Lexington Avenue Line. Cameras would also be installed so the MTA could observe passenger overcrowding.

In systems like the London Underground, stations are simply closed off when they are overcrowded; that type of restriction is not necessary yet on the New York City Subway, according to MTA spokesman Kevin Ortiz.

Service on the subway system is occasionally disrupted by flooding from rainstorms, even minor ones. Rainwater can disrupt signals underground and require the electrified third rail to be shut off. Every day, the MTA moves 13 million gallons of water when it is not raining. The pumps and drainage system can handle a rainfall rate of 1.75 inches (44 mm) per hour. Since 1992, $357 million has been used to improve 269 pump rooms. By August 2007, $115 million was earmarked to upgrade the remaining 18 pump rooms.

Despite these improvements, the transit system continues to experience flooding problems. On August 8, 2007, after more than 3 inches (76 mm) of rain fell within an hour, the subway system flooded, causing almost every subway service to either be disabled or seriously disrupted, effectively halting the morning rush. On September 1, 2021, when 3 to 5 inches (76 to 127 mm) of rain per hour fell during Hurricane Ida, service on the entire subway system was suspended.

As part of a $130 million and an estimated 18-month project, the MTA began installing new subway grates in September 2008 in an attempt to prevent rain from overflowing into the subway system. The metallic structures, designed with the help of architectural firms and meant as a piece of public art, are placed atop existing grates but with a 3-to-4-inch (76 to 102 mm) sleeve to prevent debris and rain from flooding the subway. The racks will at first be installed in the three most flood-prone areas as determined by hydrologists: Jamaica, Tribeca, and the Upper West Side. Each neighborhood has its own distinct design, some featuring a wave-like deck which increases in height and features seating (as in Jamaica), others with a flatter deck that includes seating and a bike rack.

In October 2012, Hurricane Sandy caused significant damage to New York City, and many subway tunnels were inundated with floodwater. The subway opened with limited service two days after the storm and was running at 80 percent capacity within five days; some infrastructure needed years to repair. A year after the storm, MTA spokesperson Kevin Ortiz said, "This was unprecedented in terms of the amount of damage that we were seeing throughout the system." The storm flooded nine of the system's 14 underwater tunnels, many subway lines, and several subway yards, as well as completely destroying a portion of the IND Rockaway Line and much of the South Ferry terminal station. Reconstruction required many weekend closures on several lines as well as the 53rd Street Tunnel, Clark Street Tunnel, Cranberry Street Tunnel, Joralemon Street Tunnel and Steinway Tunnel; several long-term closures were also included on the Greenpoint Tunnel, Montague Street Tunnel, Rockaway Line, and the South Ferry station, with a partial closure planned for the 14th Street Tunnel; some reconstruction is expected to last until at least 2020.

Before 2011 there have been some full subway closures for transit strikes ( January 1-13, 1966, April 1-11, 1980, December 20-22, 2005) and blackouts ( November 9-10, 1965, July 13-14, 1977, August 14-16, 2003).

On August 27, 2011, due to the approach of Hurricane Irene, the MTA suspended subway service at noon in anticipation of heavy flooding on tracks and in tunnels. It was the first weather-caused shutdown in the history of the system. Service was restored by August 29.

On October 29, 2012, a full closure was ordered before the arrival of Hurricane Sandy. All services on the subway, the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North were gradually shut down by 7:00 P.M. to protect passengers, employees, and equipment from the coming storm. The storm caused serious damage to the system, especially the IND Rockaway Line, upon which many sections between Howard Beach-JFK Airport and Hammels Wye on the Rockaway Peninsula were heavily damaged, leaving it essentially isolated from the rest of the system. This required the NYCTA to truck in 20 R32 subway cars to the line to provide some interim service (temporarily designated the H). Also, several of the system's tunnels under the East River were flooded by the storm surge. South Ferry suffered serious water damage and did not reopen until April 4, 2013, by restoring service to the older loop-configured station that had been replaced in 2009; the stub-end terminal tracks remained out of service until June 2017.

Since 2015, there have been several blizzard-related subway shutdowns. On January 26, 2015, another full closure was ordered by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo due to the January 2015 nor'easter, originally projected to leave New York City with 20 to 30 inches (51 to 76 cm) of snow; this was the first shutdown in the system's history to be ordered due to snow. The next day, the subway system was partially reopened. Several residents criticized the decision to shut down the subway system due to snow, as the nor'easter dropped much less snow in the city than originally expected, totaling only 9.8 inches (25 cm) in Central Park. For subsequent snowstorms, the MTA published a winter underground-only subway service plan. When this plan is in effect, all above-ground stations would be closed and all above-ground service suspended, except at 125th Street and Broadway, where 1 trains would run above ground but skip the station. Underground service would remain operational, except at a small number of stations that would be closed because of their proximity to above-ground portions of the system. This plan was first used on January 23, 2016, during the January 2016 United States blizzard; it was also used on March 14, 2017, due to the March 2017 nor'easter. On August 4, 2020, service at above-ground stations was suspended due to the high wind gusts brought by Tropical Storm Isaias.

Starting on May 6, 2020, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City, stations were closed between 1:00 a.m. and 5:00 a.m. for cleaning and disinfecting. Nevertheless, over 500 trains continued running every 20 minutes between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m., carrying only transit workers and emergency personnel. The trains kept running because there was not enough space in the system to store all trains simultaneously, and also so that they could easily resume service upon the start of rush hour at 5 a.m. In February 2021, the overnight closures were shortened to between 2 and 4 a.m., and in May 2021, Cuomo announced that 24-hour service would resume on May 17. This was the longest shutdown in the subway's history.

Litter accumulation in the subway system is perennial. In the 1970s and 1980s, dirty trains and platforms, as well as graffiti, were a serious problem. The situation had improved since then, but the 2010 budget crisis, which caused over 100 of the cleaning staff to lose their jobs, threatened to curtail trash removal. Every day, the MTA removes 40 tons of trash from 3,500 trash receptacles.

The New York City Subway system is infested with rats. Rats are sometimes seen on platforms, and are commonly seen foraging through garbage thrown onto the tracks. They are believed to pose a health hazard, and on rare instances have been known to bite humans. Subway stations notorious for rat infestation include Chambers Street, Jay Street-MetroTech, West Fourth Street, Spring Street and 145th Street.

Decades of efforts to eradicate or simply thin the rat population in the system have been a failure. In March 2009, the Transit Authority announced a series of changes to its vermin control strategy, including new poison formulas and experimental trap designs. In October 2011, they announced a new initiative to clean 25 subway stations, along with their garbage rooms, of rat infestations. That same month, the MTA announced a pilot program aimed at reducing levels of garbage in the subways by removing all garbage bins from the subway platforms. The initiative was tested at the Eighth Street-New York University and Flushing-Main Street stations. As of March 2016, stations along the BMT Jamaica Line, BMT Myrtle Avenue Line, and various other stations had their garbage cans removed due to the success of the program. In March 2017 the program was ended as a failure.

The old vacuum trains that are designed to remove trash from the tracks are ineffective and often broken. A 2016 study by Travel Math had the New York City Subway listed as the dirtiest subway system in the country based on the number of viable bacteria cells. In August 2016, the MTA announced that it had initiated Operation Track Sweep, an aggressive plan to dramatically reduce the amount of trash on the tracks and in the subway environment. This was expected to reduce track fires and train delays. As part of the plan, the frequency of station track cleaning would be increased, and 94 stations would be cleaned per two-week period, an increase from the previous rate of 34 stations every two weeks. The MTA launched an intensive two-week, system-wide cleaning on September 12, 2016. Several vacuum trains were delivered in 2018 and 2019. The operation planned to also include 27 new refuse cars.

Rolling stock on the New York City Subway produces high levels of noise that exceed guidelines set by the World Health Organization and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. In 2006, Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health found noise levels averaged 95 decibel (dB) inside subway cars and 94 dB on platforms. Daily exposure to noise at such levels for as little as 30 minutes can lead to hearing loss. Noise on one in 10 platforms exceeded 100 dB. Under WHO and EPA guidelines, noise exposure at that level is limited to 1.5 minutes. A subsequent study by Columbia and the University of Washington found higher average noise levels in the subway (80.4 dB) than on commuter trains including Port Authority Trans-Hudson (PATH) (79.4 dB), Metro-North (75.1 dB) and Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) (74.9 dB). Since the decibel scale is a logarithmic scale, sound at 95 dB is 10 times more intense than at 85 dB, 100 times more intense than at 75 dB, and so forth. In the second study, peak subway noise registered at 102.1 dB.

For the construction of the Second Avenue Subway, the MTA, with the engineering firm Arup, worked to reduce the noise levels in stations. In order to reduce noise for all future stations starting with the Second Avenue Subway, the MTA is investing in low-vibration track using ties encased in concrete-covered rubber and neoprene pads. Continuously welded rail, which is also being installed, reduces the noise being made by the wheels of trains. The biggest change that is going to be made is in the design of stations. Current stations were built with tile and stone, which bounce sound everywhere, while newer stations will have the ceilings lined with absorbent fiberglass or mineral wool that will direct sound toward the train and not the platform. With less noise from the trains, platform announcements could be heard more clearly. They will be clearer with speakers spaced periodically on the platform, angled so that announcements can be heard by the riders. The Second Avenue Subway has the first stations to test this technology.

Public relations and cultural impact

The subway is a popular venue for busking. A permit is not required to perform, but certain codes of conduct are required. Some buskers are affiliated with Music Under New York (MUNY), a part of the Arts & Design program by the MTA. Since 1987, MTA has sponsored the MUNY program in which street musicians enter a competitive contest to be assigned to the preferred high traffic locations. Each year, applications are reviewed and approximately 70 eligible performers are selected and contacted to participate in live auditions held for one day.

From 1941 to 1976, the Board of Transportation/ New York City Transit Authority sponsored the "Miss Subways" publicity campaign. In the musical , the character Miss Turnstiles is based on the Miss Subways campaign. The campaign was resurrected in 2004, for one year, as "Ms. Subways". It was part of the 100th anniversary celebrations. The monthly campaign, which included the winners' photos and biographical blurbs on placards in subway cars, featured such winners as Mona Freeman and prominent New York City restaurateur Ellen Goodman. The winner of this contest was Caroline Sanchez-Bernat, an actress from Morningside Heights.

Subway Series is a term applied to any series of baseball games between New York City teams, as opposing teams can travel to compete merely by using the subway system. Subway Series is a term long used in New York, going back to series between the Brooklyn Dodgers or New York Giants and the New York Yankees in the 1940s and 1950s. Today, the term is used to describe the rivalry between the Yankees and the New York Mets. During the 2000 World Series, cars on the 4 train (which stopped at Yankee Stadium) were painted with Yankee colors, while cars on the 7 train (which stopped at Shea Stadium) had Mets colors.

Since 2003, the MTA has operated a Holiday Nostalgia Train on Sundays in November and December, from the first Sunday after Thanksgiving to the Sunday before Christmas Day, except in 2011, when the train operated on Saturdays instead of Sundays. This train is made of vintage cars from the R1 through R9 series, which have been preserved by Railway Preservation Corp. and the New York Transit Museum. Until 2017, the train made all stops between Second Avenue in Manhattan and Queens Plaza in Queens via the IND Sixth Avenue Line and the IND Queens Boulevard Line. In 2017, the train ran between Second Avenue and 96th Street via the newly opened Second Avenue Subway. Since 2018, the northern terminal is now located at 145th Street.

The contract, car numbers (and year built) used were Arnines, specifically R1 100 (built 1930), R1 103 (1930), R1 381 (1931), R4 401 (1932), R4 484 (1932) - Bulls Eye lighting and a test P.A. system added in 1946, R6-3 1000 (1935), R6-1 1300 (1937), R7A 1575 (1938) - rebuilt in 1947 as a prototype for the R10 subway car, and R9 1802 (1940).

Since 2008, the MTA has tested full train wraps on 42nd Street Shuttle rolling stock. In full train wraps, advertising entirely covers the interiors and exteriors of the train, as opposed to other routes, whose stock generally only displays advertising on placards inside the train. While most advertisements are well received, a few advertisements have been controversial. Among the more contentious wraps that were withdrawn are a 2015 ad for the TV show The Man in the High Castle, which featured a Nazi flag, and an ad for Fox Sports 1, in which a shuttle train and half of its seats were plastered with negative quotes about the New York Knicks, one of the city's NBA teams.

Other routes have seen limited implementation of full train wraps. For instance, in 2010, one R142A train set on the 6 route was wrapped with a Target advertisement. In 2014, the Jaguar F-Type was advertised on train sets running on the F route. Some of these wraps have also been controversial, such as a Lane Bryant wrap in 2015 that displayed lingerie models on the exteriors of train cars.

The New York City Subway system commemorates Pride Month in June with Pride-themed posters. The MTA celebrated Stonewall 50 - WorldPride NYC 2019 in June 2019 with rainbow-themed Pride logos on the subway trains as well as Pride-themed MetroCards.

The New York City Subway system has been a target for unauthorized or "guerrilla" art since the 1970s, beginning with graffiti and tagging. Originally thought of as vandalism, the art form eventually emerged as an authoritative typology in the 1980s, especially with the release of the 1983 documentary . In 2019-2020, the Bronx Museum mounted an exhibition of graffiti-tagged subway cars.

More contemporary installations have taken place as well. In 2014, artist London Kaye yarn-bombed the L train, wrapping metal handpoles in knit fabric. In 2019, artist Ian Callender used projectors to show accurate views of the cityscape above moving 6 trains on the ceilings of entire cars. In 2021, illustrator Devon Rodriguez went viral for his drawings of fellow commuters.

In 2002, the New York City Subway began hosting an event called the No Pants Subway Ride, where people ride the subway without their pants. The event is typically held each January but has not been held since 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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New York City Subway Owner City of New York Area served The Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens Locale New York City Transit type Rapid transit Number of lines 36 lines[note 1] 28 services(1 planned)[note 2] Number of stations 472 [1] ( MTA total count)[note 3] [note 4] 424 unique stations[note

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New York's subway is in crisis. After years of growing ridership, use of the system took a dip in 2016, with further declines this year. Last month saw a train sit in the tunnel in sweltering heat for 45 minutes and a derailment with dozens of injuries. The media describes the situation as hell (Slate), a meltdown (Curbed), or a crisis (NBC). Ryan Cooper in the Week and many irate subway riders on Twitter squarely blame Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who controls the state agency responsible for the subway, the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA).

The MTA itself says the problems are about overcrowding. But this is an excuse. First, Chicago has had as large a growth in L ridership as New York has on the subway, without the recent breakdowns. An inside source at the MTA explains that by policy, each train delay must be logged with an official cause and that when no cause is formally identified, they often write down "crowding" as a default catchall rather than a real explanation.

The superficial cause of delays is that maintenance and rule changes have made the subway slower, but the MTA has not adjusted the schedules accordingly. The long answer requires an overview of the history of the subway, and why maintenance has always been so fundamental.

Deferred maintenance has been an issue since the subway's birth

The first rapid transit in New York, the steam-powered Ninth Avenue Elevated, opened in 1868. Within the next two decades, many additional lines opened in New York and in Brooklyn, at the time a separate city. These lines were all built by private companies, intent on making a profit. Some did not - railroad bankruptcies were routine in that era - but most did.

Fares on the elevated railways were fixed by law at 5 cents, about a dollar in today's money. But in the late 19th century, the United States was perhaps one-tenth as rich as it is today. Consequently, the fare was unaffordable to most of the working class, which stayed on the Lower East Side, where population density kept rising, leading to overcrowding. The neighborhoods that developed around the els, such as Yorkville, were for the most part middle-class. This situation was not acceptable to the reformers within the city elite, who viewed the situation on the Lower East Side as a disaster of public health and public morality; they hoped the immigrant working class of the neighborhood would move to the suburbs, live in single-family houses, and become proper Americans.

The subway opened in 1904, offering much higher speed: 15 mph on the local trains, 24 mph on the express trains. The els were electrified around the same time. The subway's ridership exploded, and in response to crowding, more lines were built in the 1910s and '20s. The fare was still 5 cents, but rising incomes made the trains more attractive to the working class. The neighborhoods developed around the subway still featured apartment buildings rather than single-family houses, but the buildings were of higher quality than the old tenements - they had fire escapes, indoor plumbing, and better access to natural light. The Lower East Side's population peaked in 1910, and decreased by a factor of about three by 1930. The most pressing social problems that motivated the urban reformers of the 1890s were largely gone.

But unlike the old els, the subway was not profitable. Also unlike the els, the subway was what nowadays we would call a public-private partnership. New York funded subway construction, giving the private companies that ran the Manhattan and Brooklyn els franchises to operate the lines. After World War I, inflation halved the value of the dollar, but the fare remained fixed at 5 cents. A hike to 10 cents was politically unthinkable, given how poor the city's working class still was. In the 1920s, the operating costs of rapid transit in New York were about 10 cents per rider. During the Great Depression, one of the two private operators went into bankruptcy.

The city's focus at the time was on building more subways in order to compete with the private companies and drive them out of business rather than maintaining the existing system. In the 1930s, it opened three subway trunk lines largely paralleling the existing els, which were removed shortly thereafter. In 1940, it bought the private systems, eventually creating the modern New York City Transit (NYCT) Authority. In 1948 the fare rose to 10 cents, but by then it was not enough. With money always short, maintenance was never a priority. Deferred maintenance, in short, is a problem that dates from the system's birth rather than from any new changes.

After World War II, expansion ground to a halt. Annual ridership fell from its 1946 peak of 2 billion to 1.3 billion by the 1960s, as the white middle class left for the suburbs and for neighborhoods beyond the subway's reach. Working-class usage suffered from a cycle of fare increases and ridership decline. By the 1950s, the subway raided funding for the construction of the long-planned Second Avenue Subway in order to keep the system running. But it wasn't enough.

In the 1970s, decades of deferred maintenance finally caught up to the system. The city's fiscal crisis meant it could not fund any capital projects. The NYCT had, by this point, been subsumed into the MTA, a state authority, but the rest of the state was not doing much better (even the suburbs saw population decline in the 1970s). Ridership dipped below 1 billion. The subway's mean distance between failures (MDBF) was down to 6,000 miles in 1980, and long segments, suffering from deteriorating fixed plant, were under orders to operate at just 10 mph. The Sea Beach Line, carrying the N Train in Brooklyn, had not received any overhaul since it opened in 1915.

The great slowdown

Irritating as today's problems are, they represent an improvement from the true bad old days of the 1970s. Starting in the 1980s, the MTA invested in long-term maintenance - the "fix it first" approach that many experts now endorse for highways. The MTA began a multi-decade project to reach state of good repair (SOGR), in which there would be no more maintenance backlog and no need to engage in maintenance beyond normal repairs.

This coincided with the MTA's belated adoption of long-term financial planning, with five-year capital plans, focusing largely on SOGR and normal replacement, and a little money left over for expansion. It scaled back its rolling stock plans: The trains it bought in the 1970s were ambitious (they were supposed to be capable of higher speed) but turned out to be lemons, whereas those it has bought since the 1980s have been conservative, missing out on developments like open gangways that are routine in most subway systems.

By 2010, the MDBF was up to around 170,000 miles. Most slow restrictions had been lifted. Subway ridership was up to about 1.7 billion as a functioning system paired with a return to citywide population growth. The Second Avenue Subway, chopped into four phases due to high construction costs, was under construction, and the first phase would open at the beginning of 2017. Things were looking up.

But even under improved conditions, the trains ran more slowly than they had at the dawn of the 20th century. The oldest locals were back to about 15 mph on average, but the expresses between Grand Central and Brooklyn Bridge, scheduled to take eight minutes in 1906, was only scheduled to achieve this speed early in the morning and late in the evening, running two minutes slower at more normal times. Some of this involved crowding - more passengers mean it takes longer to get people on and off the trains - but mostly it was new slow restrictions.

In 1991, an intoxicated train driver sped through a switch at Union Square, leading to a derailment at 50 mph. Five passengers died (the most of any subway accident in New York since 1928), and 161 passengers were injured.

Four years later, signal failure caused one train to rear-end another on the Williamsburg Bridge, the fourth such collision in two years. The driver died, and several dozen passengers were injured. The train was going at 36 mph through a signal designed for trains whose maximum speed was 28 mph; even with improved braking, the stopping distance was too long. The MTA said the driver could have seen the train ahead, but the driver had been too fatigued. The NYCT responded by slapping a 25 mph speed restriction on all bridges, building on the findings after the Union Square derailment.

After the accident, the NYCT also reduced the acceleration rates of the subway trains to match the rates of the older trains. Subways and regional trains around the world accelerate at 2.5 mph per second or even faster, but in New York acceleration is restricted to about 1 mph per second.

Unfortunately, these modifications to the operating procedure made the old signals less reliable. An MTA source explains that the NYCT did not always recalibrate the signals correctly for the reduced speed. Consequently, train drivers don't trust the signals and go even slower for safety. Train drivers have internalized this practice, and even when the signals are reliable they often go slower than they could, to give themselves a safety margin to avoid crossing a stop signal. Deceleration is supposed to still be quick, 3 mph per second, but in practice it seems to be closer to 2 mph per second. Reporting a problem with the signals is so difficult that the NYCT developed a culture of ignoring it until there's a crisis.

The MTA capital plan includes money to address this with partial automation known as "communication-based train control" (CBTC), to improve reliability and capacity and permit trains to go at the maximum signaled speed, at the maximum acceleration they are capable of. The only line with CBTC, the L Train, is among the most overcrowded but has the fewest delays. But the construction costs of CBTC are extreme. The 7 Train, about 10.5 miles long, has just installed CBTC, for $550 million in trackside infrastructure alone. At the same time, Paris fully automated Metro Line 1, of about the same length as New York's 7 train, for €100 million, or about $125 million, and is doing the same for Metro Line 4, about 7.5 miles long, for €150 million.

New York also has rules for speed restrictions next to work zones. Unlike nearly every other subway system in the world, New York runs trains 24/7. Most systems perform maintenance at night, when the trains aren't running. Since New York's trains are always running, they do maintenance during the day, shutting down one track at a time and imposing special slow orders on trains running adjacent to work zones. These rules were tightened in 2003, requiring more slowdowns, with additional tightening in 2008. The new rules took years to be fully implemented, so some slow orders only began recently.

Old trains mean further slowdowns

The NYCT entered this decade in what appeared to be a promising condition. The trains were slower than ideal, but they were reliable. Ridership was rising, and the maintenance backlog was shrinking. Casual observers expected steadily improving service levels to match the city's growing population and rising economic fortunes. And the good news is that there is no longer much deferred maintenance of infrastructure. The MTA is investing more in track repairs and in CBTC on more lines. This does, however, require more work zones slowing down the trains.

But there is some deferred maintenance of rolling stock. MDBF is trending down, and in 2016 it was 113,000 miles, down by a third from 2011, when it was 172,000. The oldest train class in the system, the 52-year-old R32, has the lowest MDBF in the system, about 32,000 miles, down from 136,000 in 2005 and 57,000 in 2011. This is not just an artifact of its age: The NYCT deferred maintenance expecting new trains to replace the R32s, but the rolling stock order was delayed and will only enter service this year. Even then, the NYCT will not be able to retire the R32s. One line, the L, will be shut down for long-term repairs in 2019-'20, and the NYCT will not be able to redeploy its rolling stock to other lines, which means it will need every available train set elsewhere to absorb the L's ridership.

This means the trains are running more slowly. By itself, that shouldn't mean less reliability. The MDBF, while declining, is still high enough that breakdowns should not be a regular occurrence. But on-time performance has been slipping largely because the MTA's scheduling practices are flawed and dishonest.

New York doesn't tell the truth about the schedule

The slowed-down subway can't meet its schedule largely because the schedules themselves aren't done correctly or honestly. The reasons for this fall into four buckets:

1) Labor. Crew get paid for every minute the train is scheduled to run in regular service. If a train is canceled due to track work, the NYCT still has to pay the crew for the hours they would have driven it. If it arrives at the terminal early, the NYCT has to pay the crew as if it were on time. If it arrives late, the crew are eligible for overtime only if it is the end of their shift. For the most part, the incentive is not to adjust the schedule for recent slowdowns.

2) Losing face. The MTA planning department is cautious and constantly fears board intervention, political intervention, or poor PR. The planners have not adjusted the schedules for the recent slowdowns, for fear of embarrassment. With a fixed number of drivers and trains, slightly lower speed means slightly lower frequency. If the planners did adjust the schedules, it would be a visible service cut, and the MTA board would ask why.

3) Poor metrics for schedule reliability. The MTA has two metrics for punctuality: on-time performance (OTP) at the end of each train run and wait assessment (WA), measuring the gap between two successive trains. Since subway riders do not look at schedules, even headways between trains matter more than the schedule, leading to a growing emphasis on WA. This measures adherence to the schedule, relative to the headway, even when the schedule does not have even headways, but the dispatchers still sometimes hold trains to smooth out delays.

However, per an internal NYCT document, about half of the overall delays as experienced by passengers occur on a moving train, and half occur due to excess waiting time, each about 90 seconds. WA is also averaged across all lines, without weighting by ridership, so delays on the busiest lines count as much as on the least busy ones. Zak Accuardi, a senior analyst at the national think tank TransitCenter, proposed doing away with WA entirely and replacing it with a metric combining excess wait time and excess train travel time.

4) The highly branched nature of the subway. In Paris, there are 16 Metro lines, none of which share track with any other. In New York, four subway lines have dedicated tracks (1, 6, 7, L), four more share only with one another (2, 3, 4, 5), and the remaining 13 all share tracks at various points. This means delays on one line propagate to other lines. The timetables already provide for awkward service gaps on some lines, but if trains do not adhere to a precise schedule, most of the system can experience delays. Despite this, if a train is delayed due to an incident, dispatchers will attempt to delay the trains ahead of it, in order to smooth out the WA metric, ultimately leading to both more service gaps and longer train trips. The Daily News covered this in May, showing how the practice of holding trains was making reliability even worse.

The MTA needs to get real

Despite the growing chorus of complaints, in practice the MTA and NYCT are running on autopilot. The NYCT is not making big changes; the MTA is making little effort to get its constituent agencies to cooperate, including the NYCT but also the two commuter rail operators.

With timidity ruling the day, the MTA never really thought about long-term service. The five-year capital plans do include some long-term projects for infrastructure investment, but there is less long-term thinking about schedules and service plans. The NYCT still thinks in terms of going from crisis to crisis. It's this short-term thinking that led it to defer maintenance on the R32 trains. In public relations, the same short-term thinking led the planners to keep pretending the older schedules were fine. Rather than admit to problems and change the schedule, they kept stressing the system until it couldn't take it anymore.

Nor is the political system really interesting in managing the MTA better. Gov. Cuomo is treating the subway more as a source of political capital than as a place in which to invest his political capital. His proposals ignore the banal day-to-day management of the MTA. NYCT managers are willing to do what he asks, but he is asking for pie-in-the-sky tech industry fixes rather than more honest scheduling.

The crisis of the 1970s taught the MTA to be conservative about system expansion, equipment, and speed. This worked in the 1980s and '90s, but more recently it has created its own problems, including delays, unreliable schedules, and slow trains. Management is overly cautious, which created a new set of problems, distinct from the ones that plagued the system in the era of deferred maintenance.

There is only so much short-term thinking the subway can take. In this crisis, what the MTA needs is the willingness to move forward and get faster, and the internal expertise to be able to implement it. That means starting with an honest assessment about what is a realistic schedule for the present system to meet, so that trains can be reliable if they can't be fast. Next, authorities need to take a rigorous, detailed look at how to improve train speed - ideally featuring experts involved in the management of large foreign subway systems who can provide an informed outside assessment of whether the MTA's current safety practices are genuinely justified.

Signal upgrades are clearly a good idea, but they could be accomplished much more quickly if the MTA could manage to get this work done for "only" twice what Paris spends rather than four or five times as much. Union work rules should not create an incentive for misleading schedules, and official reliability metrics should be designed to capture riders' actual experience, not to put a good face on things.

Most of all, New York needs an end to the era of generic excuses about crowding, and a set of agency and political leaders who are instead willing to level with the public about the state of the subway and begin offering recommendations for what it really needs - painstaking operational improvements, not high-tech quick fixes.

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The real reason New York City can't make the trains run on time

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New York's subway is in crisis. After years of growing ridership, use of the system took a dip in 2016, with further declines this year. Last month saw a train sit in the tunnel in sweltering heat for 45 minutes and a derailment with dozens of injuries.

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The Chicago Pedway is important because it represents a cog in a transit system that is underutilized. It is underutilized partly do to it's reputation as a dangerous place, its incompleteness and its partial closure on nights and weekends.

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A walk through the Chicago Pedway - Curbed Chicago