NY MTA: On Lettered Lines, Let PA System Be Your Countdown Clock

"New technology is inherently risky," says the MTA's Craig Stewart in  the testimony at a New York City Council hearing.   "But public agencies such as ours are inherently risk-averse."

The NY Metropolitan Transportation Authority has installed subway countdown clocks at 156 stations on the numbered lines. They're popular, and riders want more. But the lettered lines have an outmoded signal system that can't relay the location of a moving train to a clock.

The exception is the L train, which got countdown clocks at all 24 of its stations during an overhaul of its signals that began in 2007. Throughout the subway, over 200 stations now provide some type of next-train arrival information.

The lettered lines have about double the number of stations and miles of track as do the numbered lines. An authority spokesman says fitting out the lettered lines with countdown clocks would cost $400 million and take 20 years.

In the meantime, the NY MTA is working on stopgap measures, like improving the public address system at 87 stations on the lettered lines so announcers can tell riders that their train is two or three stops away. The announcers will be working off dispatch and scheduling information, which is less reliable than knowing the location of a train. That's why the announcements won't tell passengers how many minutes until the arrival of their train, as do the countdown clocks.