Statement of the New York City Transit Riders Council
Before the MTA Board NYC Transit Committee
January 23, 2012
I want to address the changes to subway performance indicators that are included in this month’s Committee agenda. First, on behalf of the New York City Transit Riders Council, I would like to say that we are pleased with the greater detail provided in the wait assessment statistics. Providing an indication of the relative length of delays within the subway system is an important step in improving understanding of conditions and needs in the system.
We are not fully satisfied, however, as the wait assessment statistics do not indicate the reasons for major delays in the systems. The MTA’s commuter railroads provide a monthly report on the causes of major delays to their respective committees, and we would like to see NYC Transit provide similar information. The breakdown of terminal delays is not sufficient, as it does not break out major delays and is aggregated too greatly to link delays to issues within the system. The PCAC pointed out this shortcoming in our 2010 Minutes Matter report.
The current presentation also does not give the MTA Board a way of identifying patterns in major delays by line and cause. We believe that a more detailed presentation of this information could help the Board in understanding the causes of delay and shining a light on linkages between the system’s capital needs and performance issues.
We have discussed these recommendations with NYC Transit in the past and look forward to a continuing dialogue with them on improving performance statistics and making them more meaningful for decision making.