MTA Cuts Mean Bigger Crowds, More Problems

The temperature on the subway platform was 94 degrees. The station was 14th Street, on the 1 line, and it was a Saturday, just a little after 3:30 in the afternoon. The last downtown train had pulled away at 3:20, and riders waiting for the next one were beginning to get antsy. People paced or leaned over to peer down the tunnel. Seconds ticked by; sweat dripped.

A shout echoed from the middle of the platform: "Where is the train?!"

It was Candice Sanchez, 26, of the South Bronx. She and her half-brother David Lugo were on an odyssey on this sweltering weekend afternoon to a public pool in Greenwich Village.

Under the MTA's sweeping service cuts, instituted July 27 to offset a nearly $800 million budget shortfall, many trains will arrive less frequently. That much, everyone who's read a tabloid newspaper in the past month knows.

But what has received less attention is that the trains will not just be fewer and farther between, but also more crowded. The days when the MTA tried to guarantee every passenger a seat on off-peak trains are gone. That guarantee was always more of an ideal than a reality. Still, its passing and the arrival of more crowded trains, all day and all week long, stand to alter the way New Yorkers think about their commute and the quality of life they enjoy underground.

Fewer trains with bigger loads

The reduced number of trains and increased amount of crowding are, obviously, flip sides of the same coin. Under one change being implemented by the MTA, the scheduled time between weekend trains has increased: Where the scheduled wait between trains used to be 6 minutes, now it is 8. Where it used to be 8, now it is 10.

In its summary of the recent changes, the MTA notes that even before the cuts, weekend trains were often late because of construction. This adjustment formalizes that lateness: Instead of a delay, it is the new normal. In fact, a wait of up to 15 minutes between weekend daytime trains could now fall within the MTA's guidelines of acceptability, because the authority does not officially categorize a train as late until it is five minutes behind schedule.

The greater wait times translate to many subway lines having fewer and more crowded trains during times when New Yorkers have become accustomed to having a little more elbow room. Trains on the 1, F, N and Q lines will now have 10 to 18 people, or more, standing in every car during busy hours on weekends. Weekday trains are more crowded too: On the 1, 7, A, F, L, J and M lines, off-peak trains are now being scheduled so that, again, there can be between 10 and 18 people standing per car.

Before the changes, the MTA would have considered that many standees unacceptable on an off-peak train. Subway trains are scheduled in part according to "loading guidelines," internal rules about how full each car should be. On most lines, the guidelines have long aimed at an ideal by which off-peak trains carry 100 percent of a seated load—a passenger in every seat, in other words, and a seat for every passenger. Under the new guidelines, which aim for 125 percent of a seated load, even off-peak trains won't have seats for everyone.

In relative terms, against the backdrop of the MTA's funding shortfall, some passengers may not consider this a major hardship. Indeed, New York City Transit spokesman Charles Seaton noted, the guidelines already allow for far more crowded trains during peak hours: between 250 and 290 percent of a seated load, or between 66 and 105 people standing in every car. In practice, the rush-hour crowding on some lines, particularly those along Lexington Avenue, can exceed even that. Considering that the subway cars in use throughout the system are capable of holding between 120 and 230 standing passengers, depending on the model of car, a train with 18 standing passengers per car may not feel truly crowded to many people.