In annual Straphangers report, 7 takes top honors

The 7 train — favored by John Rocker and urban anthropologists everywhere — is the city’s top subway route, according to the annual State of the Subway Report released this morning by the Straphangers Campaign. For the second year in a row and sixth time out of the previous 13, the IRT Flushing route leads the pack while the C train, that sad 8th Ave. local, has been rated the worst for the third year running and by no small margin.

The State of the Subways Report Card, an annual release since 1980, tracks each line along six measures, and this year, with a decade and a half of heavy investment in new rolling stock behind us, the Straphangers found that trains breakdown less frequently, are cleaner and feature more intelligible on-board announcements. “This positive trend reflects the arrival of new model subway cars and better maintenance of Transit’s aging fleet,” the Straphangers said in their report. However, the regularity of service across the subway lines varies dramatically though, and riders still struggle to find seats during peak hours.

On a scale based off of a swipe of a subway ride with $2.25 being the highest, the 7 earned a $1.60 rating, with the L right behind it at $1.45. “The 7 ranked highest,” said the report, “because it performs best in the system on subway car cleanliness and above average on four measures: frequency of scheduled service, regularity of service, delays caused by mechanical breakdowns, and seat availability at the most crowded point. The line did not get a higher rating because it performed below average on announcements.”

The C train, meanwhile, earned just a $0.55 rating while the 2, D and R trains tied for second-worst but with ratings of $0.90. “The C line performs below average on five measures: amount of scheduled service, delays caused by mechanical breakdowns and announcements (all three next to worst); regularity of service; and cleanliness,” explained the Straphangers. “The line performed better than average on one measure: chance of getting a seat at rush hour.”

As I complain every year, the Straphangers still release their reports as PDF files instead of web pages with tables. So to view the full line-by-line results, you’ll have to check out their four PDF files (line ratings, table of results, best and worst and historical rankings. I’ll break down the findings though.

The Straphangers, often tough critics of the subway system, praised the MTA for its improvements on breakdowns, cleanliness and in-car announcements. They report notes:

• The car breakdown rate improved from an average mechanical failure every 134,795 in 2008 to 170,314 miles in the 12-month period ending May 2010 — a gain of 26%. This positive trend reflects the arrival of new model subway cars and better maintenance of Transit’s aging fleet. We found sixteen lines improved (3, 4, 5, 6, 7, B, E, F, J/Z, L, M, N, Q, R, V and W), while five lines worsened (2, A, C, D and G) and one stayed the same (1).
• Subway cars went from 91% rated clean in our last report to 95% in our current report. We found that twenty lines improved (1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, L, M, N, Q, R, V and W) and two worsened slightly (2 and J/Z).
• Accurate and understandable subway car announcements improved, going from 90% in our last report to 91% in the current report. This likely reflected in part the increasing use of automated announcements on ’new technology“ cars. We found eleven lines improved (1, 3, B, D, E, F, G, J/Z, L, Q and W), five worsened (2, 6, 7, R and V) and six did not change (4, 5, A, C, M and N).

In terms of how various subway lines performed, the Straphangers offered up these top-line observations:

• Breakdowns: The M had the best record on delays caused by car mechanical failures: once every 1,045,886 miles. The G was worst, with a car breakdown rate sixteen times higher: every 60,039 miles.
• Cleanliness: The 7, L and V were the cleanest lines, with only 1% of cars having moderate or heavy dirt, while 11% of cars on the dirtiest lines — the J/Z and R — had moderate or heavy dirt, a rate more than ten times higher.
• Chance of getting a seat: We rate a rider’s chance of getting a seat at the most congested point on the line. We found the best chance is on the B line, where riders had a 68% chance of getting a seat during rush hour at the most crowded point. The 2 ranked worst and was much more overcrowded, with riders having only a 27% chance of getting a seat.
• Amount of scheduled service: The 6 line had the most scheduled service, with two-and-a-half minute intervals between trains during the morning and evening rush hours. The M ranked worst, with ten-minute intervals between trains all through the day.
• Regularity of service: The J/Z line had the greatest regularity of service, arriving within two to four minutes of its scheduled interval 93% of the time. The most irregular line is the A, which performed with regularity only 83% of the time.
• In-car announcements: The 5, E, L, M and W lines had a perfect performance for adequate announcements made in its subway cars, missing no announcements, and reflecting the automation of announcements. The R was worst, missing announcements 25% of the time.

The Straphangers say they publish this report every year because the MTA is hesitant to release broad report cards of their service. Howard Roberts’ Rider Report Cards went the way of the dodo after one and a half cycles, and the Straphangers have continued to push Transit for information on how trains perform. Lately, the authority has released more data about on-time rates and the like, but nothing as comprehensive as the Straphangers’ efforts have emerged from Transit. “We hope,” the advocacy group said, “that these efforts — combined with the concern and activism of many thousands of city transit riders — will win better subway and bus service for New York City.”

Postscript: The data in this year’s report still includes the V and W lines because the Straphangers conducted their survey before Transit implemented the June service cuts. Next year’s report will show the impact the cuts had on the system. For an entertaining look back at a system vastly improved, check out WNYC’s unearthing of the 1985 State of the Subways report. Today, we worry about litter; twenty five years ago, we worried about broken doors and cars with working lights.