The signal system is the invisible, unglamorous backbone of the subway, controlling when trains can move down the tracks. But the demands of a 21st-century ridership are being borne by archaic signal equipment, some of which dates to when Franklin D. Roosevelt was president.
Installing modern signals is fundamental to restoring the subway to a level of reliability that is vital to New York’s economic future.
The aging system’s importance was underscored last week when the Metropolitan Transportation Authority said that it wanted to spend $7 billion to greatly expand the number of subway lines slated to get new signals.
It was a major moment for subway signals, and a remarkable shift from neglected piece of anonymous infrastructure to urgent priority for elected officials.
“Making signals a priority is a sea change for New York because it’s a shift from politicians wanting to do the big, shiny thing they can put their name on, to focusing on the things that actually matter most,” said Nick Sifuentes, the executive director of Tri-State Transportation Campaign, an advocacy group.
One of the six routes chosen for signal upgrades desperately needs them: the A line in Brooklyn, which has an on-time rate of 65%, one of the worst in New York. A few miles away, the L train has modern signals and a sterling 93% on-time rate.
“I definitely think they need to upgrade it,” said Enosh Svoray, 34, an airline worker and A train rider who lives in Brooklyn. “It’s just going to be difficult in the meantime. I need to get to work. I need to have a life.”
Subway signals are the centerpiece of the agency’s next capital plan, which calls for a $54 billion investment in the region’s transit network over the next five years. It is the authority’s largest spending plan ever, and signals were among the largest budget items.
Modern signals allow more trains to run closer together and make them less prone to the failures that can produce a cascade of delays. For now, only two of the subway’s 22 routes — the L and the No. 7 — have upgraded signals and they have the highest on-time rates.
Signal problems are typically among the top reasons for train delays. In July, signal failures caused nearly 33% of major incidents, those that delay 50 or more trains, according to the transit agency.
The subway’s leader, Andy Byford, who has talked about the need for modern signals for months, said he was “ecstatically happy” that they were a top priority in the capital plan.
But Byford also cautioned that the repairs would require extensive station closings on nights and weekends.
“Let’s be clear, re-signalling the subway is going to take the patience of New Yorkers,” he said at a news conference.
The capital plan is a wish list of the agency’s priorities and it is mostly unfunded. Transit leaders are urging state, city and federal leaders to provide billions of dollars to make it a reality.
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who controls the subway, supports the plan, and he persuaded state lawmakers to approve congestion pricing tolls in Manhattan to help pay for it. But it is not clear whether Mayor Bill de Blasio or the Trump administration will make major contributions.
There is also the question of how best to install modern signals. The transit agency has previously used a technology known as communications-based train control, or CBTC. Byford favors that method and says he can put it into effect more quickly than his predecessors, but Cuomo has pressed the agency to look at other methods, including a technology called ultra-wideband that has not been used on major transit systems.
If the capital plan moves forward, the routes set for signal upgrades are the busy Lexington Avenue line in Manhattan, including the 4, 5 and 6 trains; the A and C lines in Brooklyn; the N and W lines in Queens; the E and F lines in Queens; and the G line in Brooklyn and Queens.
Many of the neighborhoods served by those trains, from Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn to Jamaica in Queens, are working-class or middle-income areas that have longed for better subway service. And while the subway has started to recover from a deep crisis, some lines are still worse than others.
Gerson Amaya, 42, a carpenter who lives in Brooklyn, said that his commute to Inwood on the A train was long — “long enough for a nap.”
“Any delays on top of it just makes it worse,” Amaya said as he rode the A on a recent morning. “There’s always a signal down or some issue.”
Susan Roy, 45, a wine buyer who lives in Richmond Hill in Queens, said that the A train had not received the attention it deserved.
“The A is the longest line, but it seems like it’s always been an afterthought,” she said. “It’s definitely neglected.”
Roy said she welcomed the prospect of upgrades. “It will affect me, but if it’s going to improve, then I don’t mind changing my route,” she said.
Still, some subway riders are skeptical that the transit agency can make the necessary fixes. Jasmine Chang, 23, a film editor who lives in Bedford-Stuyvesant, said she was so frustrated with the subway that she had considered buying a car.
“I’m glad they’re working on the A, but I feel like it’s just hopeless,” she said. “How much difference can it really make when every line is messed up?”
When the No. 7 train was upgraded this year after months of painful station closings and project delays, the line added four trains per hour, Byford said. That increased the number of trains running each hour to 29 from 25, allowing more riders to use the line.
Subway leaders say they will continue to test the ultra-wideband technology to determine whether it can be part of the signal overhaul. At a technology conference on Friday, Cuomo maintained his position: that the cost estimate for installing new signals on the 12-mile-long piece of the Lexington Avenue line, at $3 billion, was far too high.
“We cannot succeed long-term without new technology,” Cuomo said.
Transit leaders are not planning to build new subway lines as part of the capital plan, except for three new stations on the Second Avenue subway in East Harlem — a project that has been in the works for nearly a century. But they made the argument that installing modern signals was an expansion of the subway because it would open the system to more people.
“Re-signalling is an expansion strategy,” said Janno Lieber, the authority’s head of capital construction. “It takes your existing infrastructure and allows you to run a lot more trains faster and safely.”
But the prospect of stations being closed on nights and weekends to achieve that goal worried some riders.
Rosa Martinez, 43, a cleaner who also lives in Cypress Hills, said that she often worked at night and was concerned that walking to another station might be dangerous at late hours.
“It should be upgraded because you never know what’s going to happen,” she said. “I don’t want to have old signals because it should be safety first.”
“But,” she said, “it’s going to be really tough for me.”
This article originally appeared in
.