What has befallen the New York City subway in the past few years—climbing ridership and plummeting on-time performance—is like a bad stomach bug. It is nigh impossible to track down the exact culprit.
Is it the system’s funding structure, dependent on a state house more interested in cutting taxes for upstate constituencies? The constant maintenance issues, compounded by 24-hour service that leaves little time to work? Or perhaps it’s the 100-year-old signal system that prevents the city from running more trains on the 665-mile network?
