Despite yesterday’s balmy weather and lack of rain, many straphangers heading back to work after the Labor Day weekend experienced delays of more than an hour on their morning commutes: A broken switch at the 59th Street-Columbus Circle Station caused backups on the A, B, C, D, and F lines.

The switch failure was reported at about 8:45 a.m., and affected service until 9:25 a.m., a New York City Transit spokesman said.

After a flood knocked out service on almost every train line last month and left many passengers were left in the dark about where they needed to go, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority said it was trying to improve communications with its customers.

Yesterday, however, commuters were again complaining that they were uninformed about service changes.

“I got on the F train at Delancey Street and it just crawled and, two minutes later, it just stopped for what seemed like 15 minutes,” a Lower East Side resident, Carol Lee, said. “People were huffing and puffing, but there was no announcement on the train. The conductor just didn’t say anything — I had no idea what was going on.”

The crowd on her subway car breathed a collective sigh of relief, Ms. Lee said, when the air conditioning was cranked up during the delay.

A transit spokeswoman said that announcements about delays were made on affected trains and in stations yesterday.

The MTA also provides forms detailing service delays so commuters can show their employers why they were late for work, a spokeswoman said.