By now, New York City commuters are familiar with the wait. We descend from the bitter cold or the stifling heat to find subway platforms teeming with other bodies trying to make it to work on time. Delays ripple through the system, so there’s barely room to squeeze into the next train that arrives.
For years, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority told us that rising ridership and overcrowding were to blame. Yet ridership actually stayed mostly flat from 2013 to 2018 as delays rose, and the authority recently acknowledged that overcrowding was not at fault.
Instead, two decisions made by the M.T.A. years ago — one to slow down trains and another that tried to improve worker safety — appear to have pushed the subway system into its current crisis. And there’s no easy fix.
To understand how the M.T.A.’s changes have slowed down the trains, let’s look at one delayed train, represented here by a single car.
When a train is delayed, the next one may be forced to slow or stop to maintain a safe amount of space.
Delays can cascade down the line, backing up even more trains.
In the past, the subway could recover more quickly from these cascading delays. But the changes by the M.T.A. have hampered the system’s ability to bounce back.
With the two decisions, the M.T.A. dealt the subway system a blow that may be felt well into the future.
First, the agency decided to increase the amount of space required between trains. It installed or modified hundreds of signals, which regulate train spacing. In that process, signals throughout the system were misconfigured — set up in a way that slowed the trains down even more than officials intended.
Second, the agency adopted new rules for track work that expanded safety zones and increased setup times.
An analysis of internal M.T.A. documents and interviews with system managers and train operators suggest that these two changes removed extra capacity — the ability to run more trains than scheduled — from the subway system. This, on top of years of cost-cutting and deferred spending for maintenance in the 1990s and 2000s, is why the system is no longer able to rebound from disruptions as it once could.
“It’s a conga line of trains all the way down to Brooklyn,” said Kimberly McLaurin, a train operator on the numbered lines who started in 2008. “Any one thing can back up the line.”
Andy Byford, the new president of New York City Transit, “asked for an analysis of the impact of signal modifications on subway schedules” as part of a review announced in January, Jon Weinstein, a spokesman for the M.T.A., the transit agency’s parent organization, said in an email.
After a 1995 collision of two trains on the Williamsburg Bridge killed a train operator and injured more than 50 passengers, the M.T.A. began installing and modifying hundreds of signals to prevent trains from going too fast.
When a train passes over a signal’s switch, a timer starts.
How a signal is supposed to work
Train crosses signal’s switch, triggering timer.
If the train reaches the next segment of track faster than the speed limit allows, the signal will automatically activate the train’s emergency brakes.
Train crosses signal’s switch, triggering timer.
If the train reaches the next segment of track faster than the speed limit allows, the signal will automatically activate the train’s emergency brakes.
Train crosses signal’s switch, triggering timer.
If the train reaches the next segment of track faster than the speed limit allows, the signal will automatically activate the train’s emergency brakes.
The M.T.A. projected that the signal changes would not reduce the number of trains that could pass through a section of track each hour. But this assumed the signals would work properly and that trains would operate at the speed limit.
A good signal allows a train to pass through at the speed limit.
A misconfigured signal will trigger automatic braking even at speeds below the limit.
Some train operators slow down for all signals in case they are passing through a faulty one.
In reality, many signals are poorly maintained and misconfigured, triggering emergency braking at speeds below the listed limit. An unpublished 2014 internal M.T.A. analysis, first reported on by The Village Voice, found that the signal changes caused a significant slowdown, more than the M.T.A. expected.
Train operators face steep penalties after a number of instances of tripping a signal, like losing vacation days or being forced into early retirement.
“If you have two of those type of incidents, I’ve seen people forced into retirement because of something like that,” Ms. McLaurin said, noting that she always approaches the signal timers ready to stop the train, regardless of the posted speed. “I’m not playing with my job,” she added.
“Our instructors are the ones telling us, ‘Don’t go by what’s posted, go 10 to 15 miles lower,’ instead of just having someone fix it or adjust it,” Ms. McLaurin said.
Signals changes caused an immediate slowdown between stations.
