Subway derailments are at a decade-high, with more rocking the system in the last 12 months than over any yearlong period since 2011, a Post analysis has found.
Officials reported five derailments from Jan. 11, 2023, when a work train jumped the tracks on the No. 4 line near Kingsbridge in The Bronx, disrupting service, to Wednesday, when an F train derailed near the West 8th Street stop in Brooklyn with 34 passengers and three crew aboard.
That incident followed the extraordinary collision and subsequent derailment of two trains running on the No. 1 line just last week that left two dozen people injured.
“In the past week, they’ve had two separate derailments on two separate train lines in two separate boroughs,” said Assemblyman Tony Simone (D-Manhattan), who asking the Democratic leadership in Albany for hearing into the agency’s recent safety woes.
He noted that with the looming congestion pricing toll, which he supports, New York needs “a transit system that riders feel confident in.”
“At this point, I’ve got concerns about the MTA’s ability to build the public trust in their system,” Simone added.
The five derailments identified in The Post’s review of MTA reports, service bulletins and news articles took place on what the agency calls the subway mainline — the tracks that carry more than 4 million New Yorkers on an average weekday.
The tally includes an L train that derailed near the Rockaway Parkway stop in Canarsie in June 2023 and an out-of-service N train that came off the tracks in December near the Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue stop.
It’s the highest number since the “Summer of Hell” in 2017, when there were four derailments reported, including one caused by the partial collapse of the tile wall in a Bay Ridge station that covered the tracks with debris shortly before an R train pulled in.
There were just two other years that saw three or more derailments on the mainline between 2011 and January 2024, the paper’s analysis found: 2011 and 2020.
“Because it’s a network, each derailment has repercussions across the entire system,” said Danny Pearlstein, the top spokesman at the Riders Alliance. “The derailment of the No. 1 last week made commutes miserable for the A train next door.”
“We need the MTA to get to the bottom of this,” he added.
The top boss for city transit at the MTA, Rich Davey, said in an interview with The Post Thursday that his team is closely examining the surge in derailments but has not found any evidence of underlying causes linking them together.
He described them as “different circumstances that came to the same result,” adding that “I’m not putting my head in the sand, we’re going to find out what occurred.”
Davey said that review included an examination and tightening of maintenance requirements on work trains following the Kingsbridge derailment last January.
“We continue to push and ask the questions,” Davey said. “Sometimes these incidents can be unrelated – and sometimes they can be related. I don’t see any evidence that they are related.”
One of the trains involved in the derailment on the No. 1 line this month had been crippled by vandals who went through the cars pulling the emergency brakes at the 79th Street station.
That forced MTA employees to try and reset the mechanical systems, which did not cooperate.
They then cut the systems on the front of the train and attempted to pilot it back to the yard in The Bronx using the motors and brakes on the back five cars — piloted from the conductor’s cab with crew up front keeping watch.
But the crippled train didn’t stop when it hit a red signal at 96th Street, and crashed into No. 1 train that was crossing back over to the local track after having been diverted to the express track and cleared to get around the disabled train.
The chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board cited that crash and the tragic death of a track worker on a trash clean-up crew in December as the reason the agency had decided to intervene and launch its own probe — which she pointedly said would include a review of the MTA’s supervision and management of the subway system.
“This is the second accident on New York City Transit’s property in 37 days. That’s not typical,” the NTSB boss, Jennifer Homendy, said.
“Coming here, we are going to want to take a look at the entire system – including how it is managed and supervised.”
Davey and other MTA officials were quick to reject any comparisons to the mid-2010s system meltdown evoked by the “Summer of Hell,” which saw a near total collapse in service: On-time performance on the No. 2, 4 and 5 lines in 2017 was under 35%.
Last year, the No. 2 was on time 76% of the time, while the No. 4 and No. 5 each posted averages better than 80%.
“The system is safe. I took it home last night, I took this this morning,” Davey said.
MAINLINE DERAILMENTS, BY THE NUMBERS:
January 2023-January 2024: 5 derailments
January 2022-December 2022: 1 derailment
January 2021-December 2021: 0 derailments
January 2020-December 2020: 3 derailments
January 2019-December 2019: 0 derailments
January 2018-December 2018: 0 derailments
January 2017-December 2017: 4 derailments
January 2016-December 2016: 0 derailments
January 2015-December 2015: 0 derailments
January 2014-December 2014: 1 derailment
Source: Post archives, reports from other newspapers and MTA service alerts