State of the Subways Report Card 2003

1. New York City Residents' Perceptions of New York City Transit Service, 1999 Citywide Survey, prepared for MTA New York City Transit.

2. Measures are: frequency of scheduled service; how regularly trains arrive; delays due to car mechanical problems; chance to get a seat at peak period; car cleanliness and in-car announcements. Regularity of service is the measure of gaps in service or bunching together of trains.

3. We derived the MetroCard Ratings with the help of independent transportation experts. Descriptions of the methodology can be found in Section II and Appendix I. The rating was developed in two steps. First, we decided how much weight to give each of the six measures of transit service. Then we placed each line on a scale that permits fair and consistent comparisons. Under this formula, if a line whose scores for the later half of 2002 fell on average at the 95th percentile of 20 lines for all six measures, it would receive a line rating of $2.00, the current base fare.

4. We were unable to give an overall MetroCard Rating to the G and V because reliable data on crowding is not available. We also did not profile the system's three permanent shuttle linesăthe Franklin Avenue Shuttle, the Rockaway Park Shuttle, and the Times Square Shuttleăbecause data is not available.

5. After rounding, three other lines - the 6, 3, and G - also posted regularity scores of 92%. But the B and D lines score fractionally higher. Similar small differences in scores explain the rankings for other measures.

6. In July 2002, the B, D and Q were re-routed during repairs to the Manhattan Bridge, which are slated to run until early 2004. The Q is combined with the D and operates between Coney Island, Brooklyn and 57th Street/7th Avenue in Manhattan. The B and D terminate in midtown Manhattan and do not go through to Brooklyn, as they did before the re-routing. MTA New York City Transit has proposed new routing for these lines when the bridge changes are completed. The F and G were also significantly re-routed in December 2001, in conjunction with the start of the new V line.

7. In our 2001 Report Card, we noted: "In May 2001, transit officials made major changes in how several of the indicators are derived. The Straphangers Campaign unsuccessfully urged New York City Transit to re-consider its new methodologies, because of our concerns about the fairness of these measures and the loss of comparability with past indicators. Since transit officials rejected our request to re-calculate measures back to 1996 in line with their adopted changes, some historical comparability may be lost in future State of the Subways reports."

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