By Gus Saltonstall
A train line that services the Upper West Side has by far the most broken air conditioning complaints over the past five years, according to a new data analysis by Gothamist.
That line? The 1 train.
From 2020 through the middle of last July, riders filed 2,934 complaints related to hot cars on the 1 line, which is around 1,700 more than the next most complained about line, Gothamist reported.
Here are the 10 train lines in New York City with the most number of complaints from the beginning of 2020 to July 23, 2024, related to faulty AC units within cars, according to Gothamist.
- 1 train: 2,934 complaints
- 6 train: 1,152 complaints
- 3 train: 906 complaints
- Q train: 403 complaints
- A train: 390 complaints
- N train: 374 complaints
- D train: 327 complaints
- 2 train: 236 complaints
- B train: 235 complaints
- 5 train: 160 complaints
Along with the 1 train, five of the 10 train lines with the most heat-related complaints service the Upper West Side in some fashion, including the 3 train, which had the third most complaints of any in New York City.
In terms of a possible explanation for the 1 train’s sweaty conditions, the line still deploys R62 train cars, which are among the oldest in the MTA’s system and were built when subway air conditioning was still a new development. These cars are expected to be phased out in the coming years.
Additionally, subway car mechanics told Gothamist that the design of the air conditioning units on the 1 line is “antiquated and prone to breakdowns,” and that mechanics work on 1 trains at the MTA’s 240th Street train yard, which has failing infrastructure and slows the speed of possible work.
“With 1.2 billion trips over hundreds of millions of miles last year, fewer than one in every half-million riders reported a warm subway car, and some of those came contemporaneously about the same car,” Bill Amarosa Jr., NYC Transit’s senior vice president of subways, told Gothamist in a statement. “There’s a reason complaints dropped 21% last year from the year before — subway air conditioners are regularly checked and when they fail, usually on a decades-old car, they get fixed.”
A Gothamist reporter clocked a 95 degree temperature within a 1 train car earlier this summer.
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“With 1.2 billion trips over hundreds of millions of miles last year, fewer than one in every half-million riders reported a warm subway car, and some of those came contemporaneously about the same car,” Bill Amarosa Jr., NYC Transit’s senior vice president of subways, told Gothamist in a statement. “There’s a reason complaints dropped 21% last year from the year before — subway air conditioners are regularly checked and when they fail, usually on a decades-old car, they get fixed.”
Indeed, there’s a reason. You’re working with spurious data. Virtually noone would report this, or a subway car rendered unusable by a soiled individual stretched over 4 seats for the prior 8 hours. Because noone listens or does anything about it.
Would be hilarious if Mayor Mamdani fixed this.
Well he’s a socialist, so the solution is going to be removing AC from all subway cars.
Nope – democratic socialism is about providing everyone with a life of affordability and dignity. That means making sure all subway cars throughout the entire city are cool and comfortable with equivalently highly-efficient ACs 🙂
For free!
I can confirm this – riding this train most days — So — the 1 train is number 1!!! We can be soooo proud! I have started sticking my arm into the car to check the temp!
My 1 train this morning had a broken AC.
So why do you ride subways in New York?👎
For the smells
So what else is new?
The 1 line needs major renovations and updates.
Unfortunately there seems to be a trade off. The #1 is far more reliable and frequent than the IND up CPW. So pick your poison. Wait 10-15 minutes in a hot station or at least get moving in a hot train car. Yep, this is Fun City alright.
I wasn’t surprised when I saw this on NY1 this morning. At least 1-2 times per week I notice a 1 train with a car that has no AC. Sage New Yorkers know that if there’s one car that’s relatively empty while others aren’t, and/or the windows on the car are open – beware and avoid!! The AC is likely out or there’s something else wrong/smelly/disgusting in the car.
Is it the worst or do we just complain more?
This probably accounts for the 1 train’s huge “lead”. There may well be a lot of cars with broken AC, but combine that with UWSers’ love of complaining (as evidenced by this and other comments sections) and it’s off the charts.
Air conditioning was first introduced to New York City’s subway system in 1967. However, it wasn’t until 1993 that 99% of the subway cars were equipped with air conditioning,
“It was worse in the 70s.”
Another reason why not to ride in the subways in New York City.
I haven’t been in a subway since 1968. On the Upper West Side to the West Village $.35. It was my first and last time.. 👎
Billy- I’m not sure what you’re trying to say here. How does your comment move forward the conversation?
Billy, you are obviously very proud of not riding the subways. Not everyone has the time or money to use alternate means of transportation. It is not as simple as “don’t ride the subways”.
Where are the tens of millions of dollars of congestion pricing going? How about air condition the 1 stations and cars.
I was on a 3 train with no AC yesterday and sent the info, including hot train car number to the MTA via the MTA app. Within an hour I received a response that they have notified the Car Equipment team so they can test the HVAC unit on the train and make necessary repairs.
So please, take a moment to report any train issues via the MTA app and hopefully we can all experience fewer hot subway trips.
Surely the train in the photo is pulling out of the station, rather than into it, no? (That’s OK—I’ll show myself out.)
This is true. I’d say 25-35% of my 1 train rides are unairconditioned or underairconditioned. It’s gotten commonplace enough that one can’t use the typical locals’ tell of avoiding the empty cars, as people largely suck it up and go even in warm cars.
The 1 train has had the same car with broken AC for years. It’s super annoying. I can’t understand how/why it isn’t fixed by now.
https://contact.mta.info/s/customer-feedback
This is the link to the complaints form, which includes no air conditioning.
Take a photo of the car number (optional upload), fill out the multi-page form that seems designed to take far too long, and remember to move page-to-page on the form when you are close to a station with cell service.
As I write this post, I am on a 1 train with no air conditioning.
163QUAN2B5 is also the password for the WiFi on the subways platforms. Interesting.
At 95 degrees why don’t people open the windows that partially open? The sign says not to because of the AC, but there is no AC…