How Shmuzty Is Your Subway Line?

NYPIRG Straphanger's Campaign released its 2007 Subway Shmutz report yesterday and found the L line to be the cleanest.

(New York, New York) - The number of clean subway cars improved slightly since 2005, according to the ninth annual "subway shmutz" survey by the Straphangers Campaign, released today.

The best performing line was the L, with 88% of its cars rated clean, up from 61% two years ago.  Tied for second best line was the 7, with 78% clean cars up from 22% clean cars in 2005.

Both the L and 7 are in a new car cleaning initiative.

Starting in mid-September 2007, "additional cleaners were deployed at both terminals for these lines, working in multiple shifts to provide 24-hour coverage," according to MTA New York City Transit. Beginning on December 10, 2007, two new "line general managers" were appointed with greater authority to run the L (Greg Lombardi) and the 7 (Lou Brusati).

The survey was conducted on 2,200 subway cars on 22 subway lines between September 20, 2007 and January 11, 2008.

Campaign surveyors rated 50% of subway cars as "clean," a small statistical improvement from 47% of cars rated clean in a survey conducted in the winter of 2005. (No survey was released for 2006 so as not to rate New York City Transit’s new administration too early.)

The worst performing lines were the E and Q, with the smallest number of clean cars at 29% each.  The E performed worst in our survey two years ago, with 2% of its cars rated clean.