Subway delays cost New Yorkers $1.23M a day in lost work time
6sqft recently covered a report released by the city’s Independent Budget Office that analyzed the impact of a growing number of subway delays and found that subway downtime could be costing the city up to $389 million annually in lost wages and productivity for businesses. According to the New York Times, the problem is getting worse, and it’s affecting everyone’s earnings. The cost of subway delays on a typical workday morning translates to $864,000 a day in lost work time for intra-city commuters, $257,000 for commuters who live beyond city borders and $109,000 for subway riders traveling for reasons other than work. The total daily cost: about $1.23 million. Multiplied by 250 working weekdays a year, that adds up to about $307 million that New Yorkers lose in work time every year.
The report notes that the monthly tally of subway delays has increased from about 20,000 in 2012 to more than 67,450 in May of 2017. Gov. Cuomo announced a state of emergency in June, which led to a series of measures designed to improve subway service quickly. Metropolitan Transit Authority spokesman John J. McCarthy said, “The subway and our unparalleled 24-hour-a-day mass transit network are the engines that power a city economy that continues to grow and outpace the nation.” The MTA, helmed by chairman Joseph J. Lhota, is hard at work on an emergency plan that focuses on train and track maintenance and other issues.
[Via NYTimes]
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