33 Facts About The New York City Subway That You Probably Didn’t Know

[realizm]

Stand clear of the closing doors, please.

Posted on Aug. 5, 2014, at 10:46 a.m.
 


1. If all of the tracks that make up the NYC subway were laid end to end, they would stretch from New York to Chicago.

2. The green or red globes at many subway entrances actually mean something. As a general rule, entrances with red globes are closed at night, while those with green globes are open 24-7.

3. Only 60% of the subway system is underground.

4. All of the top 10 busiest subway stations are in Manhattan. Times Square takes the No. 1 spot with more than 63 million riders per year.
 


5. Though the New York City subway is by far the busiest subway system in the United States with 1.7 billion riders annually, it’s only the seventh-busiest system in the world. Tokyo, the world’s busiest system, sees nearly twice as many riders a year.

6. According to the 14th annual “subway shmutz” survey, passengers named the D train the dirtiest line, while the L was the cleanest.

7. The deepest subway stop is the 191st Street station where the 1 train stops. The platform is 180 feet below street level.

8. The Smith-Ninth streets station is the highest at 88 feet above street level.
 

 
9. There is a black-and-white striped board in the middle of every subway station. The conductor needs to point at it to assure that the train has stopped in the right place.
 
10. There is a tongue-in-cheek, but fairly accurate, economic principle known as the New York Pizza Connection, which states that the average price of a slice of pizza matches the cost of a ride on the subway. When one increases, the other tends to follow.
 
11. Putting your feet on the seat isn’t just rude — it’s a crime that cops can arrest you for.
 

 
12. When New York’s first subway system opened in 1904, Mayor George B. McClean was supposed to ceremonially start the train, then turn over control to a professional motorman. However, the mayor declared that he was “running this train,” and ended up driving for most of the journey.
 
13. A worker excavating under the East River in 1916 survived being sucked through the river and shot up into the air after the pressurized tunnel he was digging cracked.
 
14. The first female subway conductor was hired in 1917.
 
15. The worst subway accident in New York’s history occurred in 1918 when a conductor who was filling in for a striking motorman lost control of his train while entering a tunnel on Brooklyn’s Malbone Street. The crash killed 97 people and injured more than 200 others.
 

 
16. The subway started taking tokens instead of coins in 1953 when the fare was raised to 15 cents, as the turnstiles couldn’t accept two different types of coins.
 
17. In the days of tokens, criminals would often intentionally jam turnstiles and then use their mouths to suck tokens out of the slots.
 
18. In response to this disgusting form of theft, token booth clerks would often sprinkle chili powder or mace into the slots to deter thieves.
 
19. Despite the prevalence of MetroCards, it was still possible to use tokens until spring 2003, when they were officially deemed obsolete and invalid after 50 years of use.
 
20. MetroCard swipes are tracked and have successfully been used as an acceptable alibi to acquit people accused of committing crimes.
 


21. The first air-conditioned subway cars weren’t introduced until June 1967, meaning summer in New York used to be even worse.
 
22. The 7 train was the last train to get AC. By 1993, 99% of the cars were cool.
 
23. In an attempt to combat rampant graffiti on the subways, officials painted 7,000 subway cars pure white so as to dissuade potential vandals. However, graffiti artists merely viewed “the great white fleet” as a much-needed fresh canvas, and the plan failed horribly.
 
24. In 1993, 16-year-old Keron Thomas posed as a train conductor and drove an A train for three hours and safely delivered passengers to their destinations before he accidentally triggered an emergency brake on a fast curve.
 
25. In 2008, 44 old subway cars were dumped into the ocean off of the coast Maryland to serve as an artificial reef.
 

 
26. Michael Jackson filmed the music video for “Bad” at the Hoyt-Schermerhorn subway station. The MTA has rejected several proposals to install a memorial to the King of Pop at the station.
 
27. Due to the popularity of the book and movie The Taking of Pelham 123, train dispatchers generally avoid
giving trains leaving Pelham Bay Park a 1:23 departure time.
 

 


28. The MTA maintains a fake building in Brooklyn Heights. The brownstone exterior actually contains electrical equipment and a secret entrance to the subway system.

29. There is a secret train platform underneath the Waldorf-Astoria building that extremely rich people could use. President Franklin Roosevelt used the station to help hide the fact that he used a wheelchair.

30. The MTA will email or fax you a “late letter” if a train delay causes you to be late for work.

 

 

31. The A train travels the longest route. It’s 31 miles from 207th Street in Manhattan to Far Rockaway in Queens.

 

32. The A train also has the longest gap between stations, as it’s a 3.5-mile trip from the Howard Beach/JFK Airport stop to the Broad Channel station.

 

33. The New York City subway cars traveled a combined 344.9 million miles in 2013.

 

Link: http://www.buzzfeed.com/jamesgrebey/facts-about-the-nyc-subway-that-you-probably-didnt-know

[ttcsubwayfan]

Thanks for posting. Fact #29 is very interesting, I have never heard of this before.

[BM5 via Woodhaven]

27 was interesting too, to say the least. About the pizza connection, LOL, I only pay a dollar for my pizza...

[Eric B]

Isn't the Waldorf platorm on the Metro North line?

[realizm]

Yup. However the underground station below GCT will not last for long. It will end up demolished with the LIRR ESA construction which is ongoing. (They are using the shell of this station to complete the project).

 

Credits: Sam Horine

[Tokkemon]

I think I knew almost all of these before reading.

[B35 via Church]

#1.... When I went on a "field trip" to the transit museum back in 5th or 6th grade, the tour guide stated this very thing..... It was also mentioned on that transit segment they used to have on NY8 NY1 news.....

 

#2.... I learned that the hard way @ a young age (red globes).... I'll spare the story since no one here is likely interested...

 

#4 shouldn't be surprising to any longstanding NYC patron that regularly takes the subway.... I now have to say longstanding, since being a "New Yorker" means something entirely different in 2014, with this hipster culture bullshit....

 

#6... Lol.... wth is subway shmutz??? Never heard of that in my life....

 

#7 & 8.... I knew about the deepest & highest stations/platforms, but 88 feet (the number) seems rather low.... you'd think it be higher...

 

#10... Actually didn't realize that... Being in this area of Brooklyn though, I would replace the avg. price of a slice of pizza, with a dollar cab ride being closely commensurate/relative to the local fare......

 

#15 or 16... okay, buttttt..... what does the cat have to do with anything???

 

#17 & 18... lmfao... I've never heard of either of these before!

 

#19, yup, and my mother used them things until the very last day too..... I still miss the tokens, but she would NOT use the metrocard b/w its inception & the day before the discontinuation of the NYC token...

 

#20.... I still have hopes of wanting to turn my old metrocards in, just to see the history I had on them bad boys... Back when I used to fan all over the damn place.... Probably would have been charged a fee for all the paper they'd have to use, if one could infact turn a metrocard in for this purpose....

 

#23... Whatever genius that spearheaded that should have been fired on the spot.... A monotone canvas is perfect for any graf artist....

 

#24.. Who?

 

#25.. Yup, I remember that was mentioned on the news...

 

#26... Install a memorial? They need to install some more f*ckin lights at that station !

 

#27.. So that was the relevance of the "123" in Pelham 123... Interesting, as I never got around to seeing the movie

 

#30... Noble, I suppose.... Too bad it doesn't mean much of anything... These bosses today aint tryna hear it... If you're late, you're better off just walking in, no excuses, do your work, and hope that your boss aint in a bad mood.

 

#31... While they may not know the actual number (of miles), I think longstanding (and even current) new york city patrons know this....

 

#33.... Jesus christ - and I aint even religious.

----------

 

 

All in all, good post.... Thanks for bringing this to the forefront.

[realizm]

The very last point made was what got me. The fact that subway cars traveled a combined 344.9 million miles in 2013. That's like the equivalent of several hundred round trips to the moon, literally!

[Brighton Express]

This is very impressive!!! I think the only ones I knew on there were 1, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 15, 16, 19, 23, and of course 31 and 32 (notice the profile picture lol). But there was a lot of interesting stuff on here I never knew about.

[peacemak3r]

6 - Big shock to me as a lot of my friends that lives on the West side SWEAR that the B/Q are dirtier than the D.

10 - A hit or miss, a lot of my local pizzerias tell me that cheese prices go up, so the pizza slice prices go up.

26 - That's pretty hilarious.

30 - One fact I truly would have never of guessed if it existed or not.

[Union Tpke]

I knew most of them.

[Quill Depot]

I knew most of them.

[QM1to6Ave]

I've always wanted to see that secret station FDR used under the Waldorf. Have there even been any tours of it?

[Fresh Pond]

34. One does not "drive" a train...

[pjbr40]

never heard any story from 12, 13 and 27.

[T to Dyre Avenue]

#17/18 - Pretty disgusting that thieves would actually suck tokens out of the turnstiles, but good that employees put Mace or chili powder in there to get them to stop.

 

#23 - I remember the "Whitebird" days fairly well, since my home line was the back then, and I used to go all over the Bronx when I was a kid, so I saw them on the other Bronx IRT lines as well. It was definitely stupid of them to paint the cars white and I knew they wouldn't stay white for long. Even when they began painting them red a couple years later, I thought they wouldn't stay red for long.  But they did (well, they did need to be repainted from time to time) and they had gotten more vigilant about cleaning off the graffiti. Anyway, I still preferred when we took the . The cars there (R32s, 40Ms, 42s and the occasional 40 slants) generally seemed to be somewhat cleaner than their IRT counterparts, especially around the late '80s.

[BrooklynBus]

One fact that is wrong. The mayor's name in 1904 was George B McClellan, not George B McClean.