Numbers released Monday by New York City Transit President Andy Byford show on-time performance above 80 percent for the sixth straight month, the first time that has happened in six years. The newest metrics include preliminary numbers for November 2019.
Overall, trains are traveling from endpoint to endpoint about two and a half minutes faster and lettered lines about one and a half minutes faster than in 2018. The largest improvement was on the No. 7 train, some four and a half minutes faster than a year ago, prior to the introduction of the line’s Communication Based Train Control.
“The service continues to improve each month thanks to the hard work of our employees and smarter operations,” said MTA Chairman and CEO Patrick J. Foye.
Contributing to the improvement has been a reduction in track-debris fires, down significantly since NYC Transit began addressing the issue with new equipment in 2017.
In other items from Monday’s MTA committee meetings:
— Metro-North and the Long Island Rail Road both offered progress reports on positive train control implementation.
Metro-North President Catherine Rinaldi said PTC had been cut in on the Upper Harlem Line between Southeast and Brewster on Dec. 14, joining the Danbury Line between Danbury and South Norwalk, Conn.., and the Hudson Line between Marble Hill (10 miles north of Grand Central Terminal) and Poughkeepsie, N.Y. Currently, 268 Metro-North trains are operating under extended revenue service demonstrations, with 10,000 trains having operated under such demonstrations between Aug. 13 and the end of November.
Long Island Rail Road President Phillip Eng said 130 trains are operating daily under extended revenue service demonstrations, and 100 miles of PTC is now fully installed on the railroad. Testing has begun between Harold Tower in Queens and Penn Station; this will be the last section of the railroad to begin exnded revenue demonstrations, slated for fall 2020.
— Rinaldi reported on-time Metro-North performance on the Hudson, Harlem, and New Haven lines and branches was over 94%, an increase of almost 4% over the previous year.
— Metro-North will be introducing a lactation room at Grand Central, available through the Station Master’s office, near Track 37 on the upper level. The room will have a phone with adirect ring to the Station Master’s office for emergencies, with security cameras to monitor its outside entrance.
CANDID.ORG CHARITIES
Having ridden the MTA just a few weeks ago I can state the trains ran well. The biggest issue was a sudden disruption in reading passes at the gates one day. It caused some backups as people kept swiping their passes over and over trying to get through.