New York Subway
The New York City Subway is a large underground train Metro system in New York City. It includes over 722 miles of track and 469 stations, making it the most extensive public transportation system in the United States and one of the largest and longest in the world. It is operated by MTA New York City Transit.
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2 The subway system 3 Train lines 4 External Links |
The subway was originally built as three separate subway systems.
The Interborough Rapid Transit or IRT was the first of these subway systems to open, following more than twenty years of public debate on the merits of subways versus the existing elevated rail system and on various proposed routes. It opened on October 27, 1904. The first IRT line to open ran between City Hall and Broadway and 145th Street.
The Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit or BMT operated both elevated trains (els) and subways, mostly within Brooklyn or connecting Brooklyn to Manhattan and Queens. It was originally called the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company but was renamed in 1923.
The Independent Subway System or IND first opened in 1932, as a municipally-owned alternate to the two earlier private systems. The first IND line to open was the 8th Avenue line.
The three lines were unified and then operated by the New York City Transit Authority (now MTA New York City Transit) in 1940. However, the distinction between the three systems survives in the line numbering: IRT lines have numbers, BMT/IND letters. There's also a more physical but less obvious difference. IRT cars and tunnels are narrower than BMT and IND ones. Neither BMT nor IND cars can fit into IRT tunnels due to dangerously narrow clearances. IRT cars can travel on BMT/IND lines when necessary, but are not used for passenger service on those lines due to the dangerously wide gap between the car and the station platform.
The New York City Subway is designed for carrying large numbers of people during working days. A typical subway station has waiting platforms ranging from 400 to 700 feet long to accommodate large numbers of people. Passengers enter a subway station through stairs towards station booths and vending machines to buy their fare, currently the MetroCard. After swiping at a turnstile, customers walk down to the waiting platforms below. Some subway lines in the outer boroughs have elevated tracks with stations that passengers climb up to.
In some stations two separate platforms for the same subway line exist, since some subway lines have both local and express lines on the same tracks. Express lines have subway trains that pick up and unload passengers at specific stations, particularly transfer stations (special stations where passngers can walk from one line to another for free), while skipping less frequently used local stations.
A typical subway train has from 8 to 12 cars (shuttles as short as 2), when put together the train can range from 400 to 650 feet long. As a general rule the IRT trains are shorter and narrower than the IND/BMT trains, the result being that each line uses different types of subway cars. Between 1985 and 1989 some trains on the IRT lines were painted red, giving them the name redbirds. Most of them were replaced by new, more modern subway trains between 2000 and 2004.
The bulk of subway stations are in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Nearly all subway lines cross the two boroughs, and they also possess the majority of transfer stations. Some lines branch out into the Bronx and Queens, with one line (G)directly connecting Brooklyn and Queens without going into Manhattan.
In 1994 the subway system introduced a special fare-paying system called the MetroCard, which allows commuters to use cards that store money paid to a token booth clerk or to a vending machine. The MetroCard was further enhanced in 1997 to allow passengers to make free transfers from subway to bus and vice versa within two hours. The world-famous token was phased out by 2003, the same year when the MTA raised its basic fare to $2, over angry protests from passenger and advocacy groups such as the Straphangers Campaign.
In 2002 an average of 3.3 million people used the subways every weekday.
There are 27 train routes in the NYCT system, including several shuttles. Each line has a color. Trains are marked by a circle (local) or a diamond (rush-hour only).
IRT
History
The subway system
Train lines
IND/BMTExternal Links
