Transit to increase weekend service for December

You wouldn’t know it from the warm, rainy day that has descended upon New York, but the calendar flipped to December today. With the final month of the year comes the holiday shopping and tourism season. Tourism spikes, and as track work slows down, subway travel climbs as more people fill the city. To meet demand and make travel more pleasant for everyone, Transit announced today that it will be increasing weekend subway service this month.

The services increases start this weekend and will last for the next three weekend through December 19th. During this stretch, headways on the IRT local routes — the 1 and 6 trains — will see wait times drop from eight to six minutes. The 2 and 3 trains will operate every five minutes instead of six, and the 4 and 5 trains will arrive every four minutes instead of every five. On the lettered lines, E service will increase from every ten minutes on Saturday evening and Sunday to every 7.5 minutes throughout the weekend. F and Q train riders will see also see waits shortened from 10 minutes to 7.5 minutes.

The MTA says ridership increases in December are driven largely by those out for holiday shopping. “This is an extremely busy time of year for weekend travel and we are increasing our scheduled weekend service in areas of historically high ridership,” NYC Transit President Thomas Prendergast said. “By adding extra trains we are able to increase capacity and also shorten the wait time for riders.”