By EMMA G. FITZSIMMONS
June 5, 2017
It was another miserable morning on New York City’s subways on Monday as delays snarled more than a dozen lines, with an antiquated signal system blamed for much of the trouble.
Signal problems were seemingly everywhere. They struck stations at West Fourth Street and Wall Street in Manhattan. They cropped up at the Mets-Willets Point station in Queens and at Church Avenue in Brooklyn. And they appeared in the Bronx at the Eastchester-Dyre Avenue stop.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority said that workers were on the scene investigating the problems and that riders should allow for additional travel time.
Around 9:15 a.m., the authority’s website listed a gloomy tally of delays across the city.
“Another Monday, another day of signal malfunctions” on the F line, a woman identifying herself as Phoebe Stein posted on Twitter. “Late to work again.”
The delays were the latest problems in a season of transit misery for the region. Subway delays have skyrocketed, buses have slowed to a crawl, and commuters from New Jersey and Long Island are dreading delays this summer because of looming repair work at Pennsylvania Station.
Subway delays have risen in recent years to more than 75,000 each month, and some lines have an on-time rate of under 40 percent. The signal system — parts of which date to the 1930s — is among the top reasons for delays.
The confluence of signal malfunctions appeared to be a coincidence: Officials at the authority said the problems with the signals at different stations were not related.
A spokesman for the authority, Stephen Morello, said the agency’s new six-point plan to improve subway service would focus on subway tracks and signals.
“The M.T.A. is working day and night to upgrade signal equipment and install new technology that will allow us to run more trains, increase capacity and rebuild a system that is up to the standards of our riders,” Mr. Morello said in a statement.
Many New Yorkers mistakenly believe that Mayor Bill de Blasio runs the subway system, but it is actually controlled by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, a fellow Democrat. Transit activists have asked subway riders to use the hashtag #CuomosMTA during delays in an effort to hold the governor accountable.
The authority is moving to modernize the signal system, but the work has moved slowly, and reaching every line could take half a century and cost $20 billion. Mr. Cuomo recently announced a global competition to solicit ideas for how to upgrade the signals more quickly.
A spokeswoman for the governor, Dani Lever, said Mr. Cuomo had also prioritized the agency’s capital plan, which provides funding for signals. “The challenges facing our transit system are decades old and wide-ranging, and we need everyone at the table to help find real solutions to fix them,” Ms. Lever said in a statement.
Amanda Neville used the hashtag mentioning Mr. Cuomo when she was delayed on the F line on Monday morning because of signal problems. She said she wanted to make clear that the governor was responsible for the subways.
Ms. Neville, who usually commutes by bike or subway, said the signal problems had started to become a morning ritual.
“It’s noticeable,” she said. “Almost every time I’m on the train, there is a signal problem, and it just makes me want to ride my bike.”
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