Subway Delays Rapidly Increasing

By Special to the Sun | February 21, 2008

Delays on New York City's subway system increased by nearly a third last year, according to New York City Transit Authority statistics to be released next week. Riders were delayed an estimated 138,444 times in 2007, a 31.4% increase over the 105,338 incidents the previous year, and a 54% increase from the 74,726 delays in 2005.

"We are doing an incredible amount of capital construction work and those projects do have an impact on normal operations if they are not completed on time," a spokesperson for the transit authority, Paul Fleuranges, said in a statement. "While it is our goal to have this work wrapped up in time for normal service to resume, sometimes that is not possible." Some transportation advocates say that the delays are indicative of an overall trend in the city's subway system.

"By their own numbers, they're providing service that's deteriorating," the chief attorney for the Straphangers Campaign, Gene Russianoff, said. "You have to manage by the numbers. These are showing a problem."