BY KEVIN DUGGAN
It’s a subway line John
Cena would appreciate — as
these days, “you can’t see” the
C train.
Some Brooklyn and Manhattan
commuters suffered
a particularly rocky start to
the post-Labor Day return to
the offi ce as more than one
in fi ve C trains didn’t run
in September, according to
newly-released fi gures by the
Metropolitan Transportation
Authority.
MTA’s New York City
Transit counted 79.3 percent
of C train service “delivered”
on weekdays — which is jargon
for the rate of scheduled
trains that actually run. That
means 20.7 percent of subways
on the C line never showed up,
according the MTA Board’s
monthly NYCT committee
books released Friday.
That makes the C the worstperforming
line and well below
the systemwide average of
89.5 percent service delivered
last month, which is down 7.3
percent from September 2020,
albeit very slightly up from
August when the overall rate
was 89.3 percent.
Less than two in three, or
63.7 percent, of C trains were
on time during weekdays,
which MTA counts as within
fi ve minutes of their schedule,
making it the tardiest train.
Across all subway lines, the
on-time performance is at 80.6
percent, down 9 percent from
the same time last year and
2.6 percent lower compared to
August.
Meanwhile, September’s
top performer for service delivered
COURIER L 14 IFE, OCTOBER 22-28, 2021
was the J/Z line at 96.4
percent and for on-time rates
the high achiever was the L
train at 92 percent, excluding
the three shuttle services.
The C train runs locally
on the Eight Avenue Line between
168th Street in Washington
Heights and Euclid
Avenue in East New York,
Brooklyn.
The agency chalked up the
drop in both service metrics
across the board to ongoing
crew shortages, forcing them
to cancel trips.
Crew shortages have been a
problem for months as conductor
and train operator ranks
have been whittled down by
a pandemic-era hiring freeze,
illness, and retirements, THE
CITY reported.
There were a whopping
31,413 weekday trips delayed
in September and the most
common cause was a lack of
staff, which caused 11,370 delays,
or 36 percent. On weekends,
the dearth of workers
made up an even greater rate
of delays at 42 percent, according
to MTA.
Transit gurus have said
they’re stepping up hiring and
training new workers in order
to curb the issue.
“We are continuing all the
aggressive steps I laid out in
September to address crew
shortages,” wrote NYCT Interim
A C train arriving at the Clinton-Washington Avenues station in Brooklyn
on Oct. 17. Photo by Dean Moses
President Craig Cipriano
in the report released Friday.
“We are intensely focused
on service delivery, bringing
on new train operators, conductors,
and bus operators.”
Senior Vice President of
Subways, Demetrius Crichlow,
wrote that he was able to welcome
32 new conductors at
their graduation last month.
The agency has tapped
recent retirees to return to
service, and about 60 people
“expressed a willingness” to
come back temporarily, Cipriano
added.
“NYC Transit is exhausting
every avenue to quickly
increase the number of available
train crews including
bringing back 60 recently retired
train operators and conductors,
working with our labor
partners to allow more
fl exibility in scheduling, recruiting
new hires, targeting
outreach to veterans, shortening
training time, expanding
classes and offering to buy
back vacation time,” said MTA
spokesman Aaron Donovan.
‘C’ you later!
This line had 20% of trips canceled last month
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