More trains are on time, say officials

Little by little, the subways are getting better, the MTA says — and it’s got data to back it up.

On-time performance of subway trains broke 70% in October for the first time since August 2015, the agency announced Friday. And weekend on-time performance was 79%, the MTA said.

For the second month in a row, the MTA cut the number of delayed trains by more than 10,000.

Riders endured 65,487 train delays in October, down from the 81,607 subway delays in the same month last year. The MTA attributed the improvement to a concerted effort to shave seconds from train trips wherever possible.

Major incidents — disruptions that hold up at least 50 trains — also dropped.

There were 2.3 of these incidents, on average, each weekday in October, a decline from the 3.6 disruptions each weekday before the MTA launched a concerted effort to improve service in July 2017.

Overall, riders suffered through 52 major weekday disruptions in October— about 12 fewer than in October 2017.

It was the second month in a row the MTA issued data showing subway service had gotten better.

MTA officials attribute the gradual improvement to their Subway Action Plan, an intense $836 million repair program started last year at the behest of Joe Lhota, who resigned Friday as MTA chairman.

“Where the Subway Action Plan has been in effect, we have been seeing improved statistics,” said Andrew Albert, the riders’ advocate on the MTA board.

Besides repairs funded by the Subway Action Plan repairs, transit crews have cleaned out more clogged tunnel drains, sucked up firecausing trash from the tracks, and stationed platform workers to get trains in and out of stations faster.

“The fact that where they’ve done some of these things make a difference bodes well in the big picture,” Albert said. “That means they know what has to be done and we have to keep it going.”