History of the New York City Subway

It has been suggested that this article should be split into articles titled History of the New York City Subway (1904–1940), History of the New York City Subway (1940–present) and Incidents and accidents on the New York City Subway. (discuss) (March 2024)

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The New York City Subway is a rapid transit system that serves four of the five boroughs of New York City, New York: the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens. Its operator is the New York City Transit Authority (NYCTA), which is controlled by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) of New York. In 2016, an average of 5.66 million passengers used the system daily, making it the busiest rapid transit system in the United States and the seventh busiest in the world.^[9][10]

The first underground line opened on October 27, 1904,^[11] almost 35 years after the opening of the first elevated line in New York City, which became the IRT Ninth Avenue Line.^[12] By the time the first subway opened, the lines had been consolidated into two privately owned systems, the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company (BRT, later Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation, BMT) and the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT). After 1913, all lines built for the IRT and most lines for the BRT were built by the city and leased to the companies. The first line of the city-owned and operated Independent Subway System (IND) opened in 1932, intended to compete with the private systems and replace some of the elevated railways. It was required to be run "at cost", necessitating fares up to double the five-cent fare popular at the time.^[13]

The city took over running the previously privately operated systems in 1940, with the BMT on June 1 and the IRT on June 12. Some elevated lines closed immediately while others closed soon after. Integration was slow, but several connections were built between the IND and BMT, which now operate as one division called the B Division. Since IRT infrastructure is too small for B Division cars, it remains as the A Division.

The NYCTA, a public authority presided over by New York City, was created in 1953 to take over subway, bus, and streetcar operations from the city.^[14] In 1968 the state-level MTA took control of the NYCTA, and in 1970 the city entered the New York City fiscal crisis. It closed many elevated subway lines that became too expensive to maintain. Graffiti, crime, and decrepitude became common. To stay solvent, the New York City Subway had to make many service cutbacks and defer necessary maintenance projects. In the 1980s an $18 billion financing program for the rehabilitation of the subway began.

The September 11 attacks resulted in service disruptions, particularly on the IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line, which ran directly underneath the World Trade Center. Sections were crushed, requiring suspension of service on that line south of Chambers Street. By March 2002, seven of the closed stations had been rebuilt and reopened, and all but one on September 15, 2002, with full service along the line.^[15][16]

Since the 2000s, expansions include the 7 Subway Extension that opened in September 2015,^[17][18] and the Second Avenue Subway, the first phase of which opened on January 1, 2017.^[19][20] However, at the same time, under-investment in the subway system led to a transit crisis that peaked in 2017.