‘We yet again apologize for the unavoidable delay’

Most New York City subway riders would agree: Nary a week goes by without some subway delays. Whether it’s a few more minutes than usual at rush hour or a full-blown police investigation/sick passenger issue, delays are seemingly running rampant recently.

Well, as The Sun reported yesterday, if it seems like delays are up, that’s because they are. In numbers to be released next week, the MTA will announce that delays have reached an 11-year high and have more than doubled since 2003.

For those interested in the raw data, take a look at the number of delays by year since 1996, courtesy of the MTA:

2007: 162,774
2006: 125,364
2005: 90,914
2004: 78,398
2003: 69,890
2002: 88,522
2001: 99,768
2000: 102,855
1999: 126,829
1998: 141,541
1997: 158,578
1996: 175,955

The MTA pinpoints construction issues as the leading cause of these delays. That is, of course, the cost of having to maintain and upgrade a system 100 years old in some parts. “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,” Paul Fleuranges, vice president for corporate communications, said to The Sun. “While it is our goal to have this work wrapped up in time for normal service to resume, sometimes that is not possible.”

Additionally, sick customers, unruly riders and obnoxious door-holders contribute to these unplanned delays as well. When the automated voices on the new trains tell you get out of the way, just listen to them already.

Transit advocates were a bit dismayed at the sudden jump in delays over the last few years. “By their own numbers, they’re providing service that’s deteriorating,” Gene Russianoff of the Straphangers Campaign said to The Sun. “You have to manage by the numbers. These are showing a problem.”

I offer up a different take though. While the rise in delays coincide with the unprecedented boom in subway ridership numbers, they also line up nicely with an increased focus on the capital campaign. The MTA kicked off its 100-year anniversary in 2004 with a pledge to maintain the system into its second hundred years. Since then, delays have spiked.

Of course, at some point, we should expect to see the delays go down, but many of these capital projects aren’t close to completion. One day soon, we hope, the construction will be completed. For now, we just have to hope that the delays decrease. A 21st Century New York with 1970s subway delays would be quite the experience.