Ah, the subway delay. Go-to story for frequently late employees and boyfriends, but as it turns out, it’s not as far-fetched as skeptical bosses and boyfriends might think, at least according to a new report from the comptroller’s office that amNewYork shared. Turns out that 26% of weekday subway trains and 19% of weekend trains ran behind schedule between 2013 and 2014. Or if you hate percentages, that’s about 500,000 trains. Either way, that’s a lot.
According to a study that Comptroller Scott Stringer released today, the number of on-time trains dropped from 80.5% to 74% on weekdays and 85.4% to 81.2% on weekends between 2013 and 2014. The least on time train of all? The 4 train, which couldn’t even crack 50% punctuality. The best might surprise you, at least if you’re on Twitter a lot, because it’s the L train, which was on time 93.7% of the time, according to the report.
The biggest problem for the MTA appears to be that the subway us just too damn popular these days, with the study finding that 40% of delayed trains were due to overcrowding (see this cute video for how that happens). Obviously one thing you could do to help is call the governor and the mayor every day and tell them to pour more money into the MTA so we can have a subway system with more maintained and modern trains. Also you could ride your bike everywhere, even when it’s cold out. What? It’s good for you and we even gave you some tips so that it wouldn’t be that bad.