For New York City Transit, a typical subway car has a lifespan of approximately 40 years. After those four decades are up, the agency prefers to replace old technology with newer cars that won’t require as much maintenance and feature cutting-edge transportation technologies. If that lifespan guideline were to be applied to the R44s currently in service along the Staten Island Railway, the MTA’s latest iteration of its 2010-2014 capital plan will call for rolling stock replacements, but it does not. Staten Island will be, according to Maura Yates, left with its R44s for at least another five years.
Although the R44s on the A line are going to be replaced, the news, however, is not all doom and gloom for those Staten Islanders looking for the MTA to focus on improving transit options on the island. Recently, the 63 R44 cars that make up the SIR fleet underwent an $11 million retrofit that should keep them running smoothly for a few more years, and the MTA is still planning to spend over $20 million to build the Arthur Kill Station.
Staten Island representatives to the MTA Board are satisfied with the investment and know the MTA will closely monitor the SIR’s aging rolling stock. “The irony is that our tracks, unlike our roads, are in better shape than the rest of the city,” Allen Cappelli said, “so our cars don’t take the kind of pounding that they do in other places. It was the recommendation that they did not need to put money in the budget to replace them. However, if a problem develops and we need to replace the cars, I’ve been assured we’ll buy the cars, but I’m not expecting that will have to happen.”