Not ever shutting subways: Bill, Joe

HERE’S ONE thing MTA Chairman Joe Lhota and Mayor de Blasio agree on: The city never sleeps, and the subway shouldn’t either. The men, once competitors for City Hall and now opponents in transit policy, rejected a wild idea from the nonprofit Regional Plan Association that called for the subway to take a nap from 12:30 a.m. to 5 a.m., Monday through Thursday. The group said just 85,000 people, 1.5% of the subway’s 5.7 million daily riders, take trains overnight. “I’m a New Yorker — 24-hour subway service is part of our birthright,” de Blasio said. “This is not Washington, D.C., with all due respect to Washington, D.C. You cannot shut down the subway at night. This is a 24-hour city.” Lhota called it “a bit Draconian.” “The MTA has successfully been closing certain subway lines in evenings and on weekends as needed for maintenance and repairs,” he said. “A permanent closure, I fear, would be inappropriate for the ‘city that never sleeps.’”