What you should know
- The Metropolitan Transportation Authority announced that more service will soon be coming to several New York City subway lines on weekends.
- There will be increased service on weekends along the 1 and 6 train lines, MTA Chairman Janno Lieber said at a news conference Wednesday.
- The trains will come every six minutes instead of every eight minutes, which Lieber admitted “may not sound like a lot, but when you’re standing on a hot platform, those minutes really add up.”
NEW YORK — The Metropolitan Transportation Authority announced that more service will soon be coming to several New York City subway lines on weekends.
There will be increased service on weekends along the 1 and 6 train lines, MTA Chairman Janno Lieber said at a news conference Wednesday. The trains will come every six minutes instead of every eight minutes, which Lieber admitted “may not sound like a lot, but when you’re standing on a hot platform, those minutes really add up.”
The agency hopes that those two minutes saved will encourage more people to take the subway on weekends. Lieber said she was able to give the green light to more services after the state added $35 million to the budget.
Riders have consistently complained in surveys that one of the reasons they avoid the tube is having to wait. More service was added last month along the G, J and M lines, the MTA said, and more midday service was also added along the C line.
“What they tell us is that they would travel more frequently if we had more frequent weekend service, for example,” said MTA transit chairman Richard Davey.
Weekends also get extra attention because service on Saturdays and Sundays is closer to pre-pandemic levels than weekdays. To achieve that additional service, the MTA is adding hundreds of jobs. Demetrius Crichlow, the MTA’s vice president of subways, said the agency has hired “248 train operators and 223 conductors so far in 2023 alone.”
But all those new hires need training first, which means expansion will be slow and steady.
The changes would come just over a week before the price of a bus and metro ride in the city increases. Starting August 20, the MTA will implement a 15-cent increase, raising the price of the ride from $2.75 to $2.90.
A single-ride ticket will cost $3.25, while an unlimited ticket will cost $132 a month, $5 more than the current price. The MTA board voted unanimously in favor of the increase in July.
The new fares mark the first time commuters have seen a price increase on the nation’s largest public transportation system since before the pandemic. The MTA increased fees in 2019, but only on weekly and monthly MetroCards. The subway’s “base” fare wasn’t increased then, nor was it increased in 2017, but most commuters don’t pay the one-hop base fare anyway, which is why most experienced the increase four years ago .
Commuter rail fares would also increase, from $250 per month to $260 for LIRR and Metro-North riders. However, the MTA recently announced a fare freeze for Metro-North riders west of the Hudson River. That freeze will be presented to the transit authority board for approval.
That fare increase will come as the MTA said it would begin its fare-free bus pilot program on five routes, one in each county, at the end of September. To see which lines will be part of the program, click here.
E-ZPass tolls on bridges and tunnels increased from $6.55 to $6.94 on August 6, two weeks before the public transit fare increases.
That’s all ahead of congestion pricing, which is on track to be implemented in spring 2024, which would add another expense for drivers entering Manhattan below 60th Street.
