Subway delays worsen as MTA touts solutions in 2050 these are the worst lines
What the F? Big Apple subways are facing an uptick in delays this year — but the MTA appears more focused on the future, touting improvement projects that are decades away.Weekday on-time performance slipped 1.7 percentage points systemwide, from 83.7% in the first half of 2025 to 82% in the first half of 2026, according to MTA data.That means nearly one in five weekday trips failed to arrive on time and some lines were far worse.The B, N, 2 and F lines posted the lowest weekday on-time rates, at 71.6%, 72.7%, 73% and 73.1%.Big Apple straphangers sounded off on Friday about their own experiences with the subway delays.
Sal Padellaro, 33, recalled he was once stuck on a stalled F train for minutes.“I remember smoke barreling into the train car,” Padellaro told The Post while waiting for the A train at 50th Street.
“It’s hard to be underground with no service that long,” he added.“My family, my boyfriend, everyone was trying to get a hold of me.”Ana, who has lived in Manhattan and ridden the subway her whole life, said the 6 train is a drag. That line dropped from 85.3% to 76.3% on weekdays — a 9-point fall, the steepest of any line in the system.“The 6 train will say two minutes and then it takes ten mins until the train comes.
It’s crowded and people are pushing and shoving and fighting because they want to get in,” said Ana, who declined to give her last name.She said she can be written up if she is late to her job in hospital billing. Delay verification notes that the MTA provides can take days to arrive and wouldn’t help her anyway, she griped.Padellaro, too, said late trains throw off his workday.
“I have staff that report to me, and you have to work with a lot of different train schedules being late, which delays people getting to work, which can hurt business and certain operations,” he said.The 7, J and L trains were the most reliable lines, arriving on time 89.1%, 86.4% and 85.4% of the time on weekdays.The 42nd Street, F...