Filth, Grime on the Rise in Subways, Straphangers Say

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For the second straight year, dirt and grime in the city’s subways has increased, the Straphangers Campaign said in a report released yesterday.

Of the 2,200 subway cars surveyed during a four-month period late last year, 47% were rated as clean, down from 61% in 2004. Cars on 15 of the 22 subway lines showed deterioration, while those on only three lines improved, the study found.

“The grimy bottom line is that subway cars are becoming dirtier,” the staff attorney for the riders’ advocacy group, Gene Russianoff, said yesterday.

The filthiest line is the E, with just 2% of the cars rated as clean. The M was nearly as dirty, with 4% clean cars. Subway lines using new cars generally fared better in the survey. The 4 line topped the list, with 94% of its cars classified as clean. The 6 line followed, with 79%.

New York City Transit, which conducts its own cleanliness studies, slammed the Straphangers Campaign’s findings yesterday. In a statement, the agency said the “absurdly low” figures for the E and M lines “defy both logic and common sense.”

A spokesman for NYC Transit, Charles Seaton, said numbers from the agency’s Passenger Environment Study “wildly disagree” with the Straphangers Campaign survey. The internal study found no significant change from last year, Mr. Seaton said. When the Straphangers released its study last spring reporting an increase in dirt on the subway, NYC Transit said its findings also showed an increase, albeit a less pronounced one. “I think our numbers are right,” Mr. Russianoff said.

In the Straphangers study, the reported cleanliness of some of the lines varied greatly from 2004. The 1 line jumped to 76% in 2005 from a system low of 14%. The M line appeared to grow much dirtier, dropping to 4% from a clean rating of 35% last year.

With subway ridership at an all-time high, Mr. Russianoff said the transit authority needs to devote more resources to keeping the cars clean. NYC Transit said it has spent $64 million a year on cleanliness and increased the number of car cleaners by 9% since 1997.

Several train riders yesterday said they were not surprised by the Straphangers Campaign findings, although some disagreed about which lines were the dirtiest. For Nicole Lynch, 23, of Edison, N.J., long trips back from visiting family in the outer boroughs are the worst. “They start out clean,” she said of the subway cars, “but by the time they get to more heavily populated areas, forget it.”


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