Photograph of people waiting for the 6 train by Union Square by Unlisted Sightings on Flickr
For everyone who waited too long for a subway in April--NYC Transit revealed that train delays were up 44% in April, which is the latest month with available data. The Post lists the top reasons:
1. Track work (delaying 4,117 trains; in April 2007, there were about half the number of delays due to track work)
2. Riders holding doors (918; April 2007, 549)
3. Guard-light trouble (833; the guard-light indicates where a door is closed or not, and there were 325 in April 2007)
4. Unruly passengers (819; April 2007, 271)
5. Fire/smoke (695; April 2007, 292)
6. Signal trouble (600; April 2007, 941)
7. Sick riders (591; April 2007, 409)
The Post reports that one MTA board member blamed NYC Transit management, calling the poor figures a result of "lack of supervision of what goes on underground," but NYCT President Howard Roberts said it wasn't the employees' faults (conceivably aging trains and equipments are partly to blame as well). Still, as ridership continues to grow, $8.9 million will be spent to increase service to the 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, B, M and W lines. And another interesting fact: For NYCT, a train is "delayed" it's more than 6 minutes late.
