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MTA to boost night, weekend subway service this summer
By
Stephen Nessen
Published May 4, 2023
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By
Stephen Nessen
Published May 4, 2023
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The hot, sweaty weekend waits for subway trains will get a little shorter this summer for riders on the G, J and M lines, MTA officials said Thursday.
As part of an agreement in the state budget, the MTA will spend $35 million over the next year to provide more frequent service on lines where ridership is rebounding quickly from the pandemic. The first of the service boosts will begin in July with more weekend trains on the G, J, and M lines. Officials said Saturday and Sunday commuters on the lines will wait eight to nine minutes for a train, instead of the current 10 or 11 minutes.
And in August, the MTA said it plans to improve weekend service on the 1 and 6 lines, running trains every six minutes. The same month, officials plan to increase midday service on weekdays along the C, N and R lines, with headways decreasing to eight minutes from the current 10-minute scheduled waits, the agency said.
Transit advocates have for more than a year pushed lawmakers and MTA officials to schedule all the city’s subway trains to run every six minutes.
The announcement came as the MTA reported subway ridership hit 4 million on Wednesday. It’s the third day since the pandemic hit that the system’s ridership has hit the milestone. Weekday subway ridership remains at about 70% of pre-pandemic figures, but weekend ridership is higher, at about 80%.
“Discretionary travel has led the ridership recovery on subways, demonstrating that New Yorkers are ready to ride mass transit when they have somewhere to go,” said MTA Chair Janno Lieber. “As we have said throughout this whole process, once the funding is there, we can expand service to better align with post-COVID ridership trends.”
By the end of the year, the MTA plans to increase evening service on the C, N and R lines and boost midday trains on the G line.
The last tranche of service improvements are expected in July 2024 with weekday boosts to the B, D, J and M lines and weekend increases on the 3 and 5 lines.
State Sen. Leroy Comrie credited transit advocates for pushing lawmakers and the MTA to include these service improvements as part of this year’s budget.
“I am encouraged that the MTA is listening to advocacy groups,” Comrie wrote in a statement.
Danny Pearlstein, a spokesperson for the advocacy group Riders Alliance that’s been a leading advocate for six-minute subway service, said the changes reflect the power of the riding public.
“The difference today is that riders are organized and know that, in this town, every minute counts,” said Pearlstein. “As a result, Governor Hochul, MTA officials, and legislative leaders prioritized shorter waits and faster commutes for millions of New Yorkers.”
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transportation
Stephen Nessen
Stephen Nessen covers transportation. Since 2008 he has reported on everything from Occupy Wall Street, the rebuilding of the World Trade Center site, Hurricane Sandy, to Trump’s campaign for president. His transportation reporting has taken him everywhere from the MTA’s secret Rail Control Center to the gleaming subways of Seoul. Got a tip? Email [email protected].
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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