When in New York City, don't take the subway!

 

Quite apart from the soaring crime rate on MTA subway trains, in a city that has "lost control of crime", there's the question of whether the trains themselves - and the tracks on which they run - are safe and/or reliable.  The Gothamist says they're neither.

The city’s subways aren’t just on the brink of collapse — the breakdown of the aging system has already begun. The number of train delays caused by faulty infrastructure and equipment last year shot up by 46% since 2021, MTA data shows. Major incidents — defined as problems that delay 50 or more trains, like the one on Dec. 11 — reached their highest levels last year since 2018.

During a three-month investigation, Gothamist reporters toured eight transit facilities that are off limits to the public and got a first-hand look at the MTA’s old, crumbling infrastructure. Reporters interviewed more than 100 riders on nearly every subway line across the city about the daily inconveniences they endure due to the shoddy system.

"The way the world looks at New York, it's like there's so much money here. It's like the capital of capitalism, everything's great and whatever. And the train is terrible," said J train rider Marcela Toro, 34.

Internal MTA records obtained by Gothamist and the agency’s public data reveal that service breakdowns are on pace to become more frequent in 2025 than during New York’s infamous “summer of hell” in 2017, when the subway’s reliability fell to its lowest level in decades. MTA officials blame those problems on “deferred maintenance,” or decades of cost-saving measures that kept equipment in use far past its expiration date. But those same problems persist, and experts warn the same thing is about to happen again, creating cascading issues throughout the system.

"If you don't invest in the foundation of a house, the house is going to fall down when the wind comes,” said John Samuelsen, international president of the Transport Workers Union.

. . .

The subway system runs on electricity, which makes the system vulnerable to the growing number of flash floods fueled by climate change. On a dry day, 254 pump rooms pump about 14 million gallons of water out of the subways. During Hurricane Sandy in 2012, the system was inundated with more than 60 million gallons.

The equipment that expels water from the system includes technology installed in the 1920s, according to Jamie Torres-Springer, the MTA’s head of construction.

Two of those old pumps are behind a door at the 116th Street station on the 2 and 3 lines. Commuters who pass by likely have no clue they’re standing just feet away from infrastructure that looks like it should be in a museum.

The two oldest pneumatic pumps in the room are so old they can’t be automated and run on air pressure that’s calibrated by the twist of a handle.

. . .

“A pump room like this, the equipment is over 100 years old, so it's often in poor condition,” said Torres-Springer.

“It's being held together with chewing gum and twine in a lot of cases and it doesn't have the capacity to handle the water flow that we see because of heavier rainfall events.”

There's more at the link.

The MTA wants to spend $65 billion on upgrades and improvements, but there's no guarantee even that enormous sum will be enough - and it'll be yet another immense financial burden on the shoulders of already overtaxed and overextended New York residents.

If I knew that the odds of my suffering a criminal attack, or a breakdown that prevented me getting to my destination on time, or a weather or other natural disaster-related event that might threaten my safety (even my life) . . . why would I even think of spending my hard-earned money on a service that increasingly appears to guarantee all three outcomes?

Oy.

Peter