Subway Vulnerabilities: Problems We Cannot Hide Underground

New York, NY, USA

By Renata Benigno
subway, new york, flooding, conditions, income

An exploratory investigation about vulnerabilities of NYC subway system and reasons why it should not be taken for granted

Crises disturb the subway system and service, whether they are due to difficulties to maintain and repair the system or due to natural disasters, whether they are short term or long term. This project was an attempt to visualize both daily and sporadic constraints that might cause disruptions to the subway system and bring to surface problems we would rather prefer to keep underground.

Daily Constraints [Vulnerability Related to Maintenance and Repairs]

In 2012, the MTA NYCT (Metropolitan Transportation Authority ­ New York City Transit) released a survey stating the condition of its 467 subway stations. The CBCNY (Citizens Budget Commission) made this study available, by creating a map that shows which stations have structural components not in good conditions (SGR ­ “state of good repair”).

With this data and information found at Census Fact Finder, I produced this map, which overlays neighborhoods’ median income by household (2014) and subway stations’ conditions, in order to identify if there is any relation between those two factors.

[Click on the subway stations for more information about them.] Although this map might not show an evident relation between lower income and worse conditions of repairs and maintenance, it helps to visualize the distribution of the subway stations in worse conditions around New York City. The charts below illustrate this.

Nevertheless, the map takes into consideration which stations will receive maintenance or improvement services along the next 5 years, based on MTA’s Capital Plan for 2015-2019. As it can be observed, few stations that are currently in bad or very bad conditions are not included in the current Capital Plan.

Sporadic Constraints [Vulnerability Related to Natural Disasters]

In October 29, 2012, after Hurricane Sandy made landfall in New York City, 9 out of 14 under river tubes were flooded and damaged to different degrees. It took 6, 7, 11, up to 53 days for service to be completely restored in those tunnels.

Inspection and reconstruction efforts began immediately after the storm, in order to bring the system back as soon as possible. Although service has been reestablished, since the storm, MTA NYCT (Metropolitan Transportation Authority ­ New York City Transit) has been working on repairing and protecting the tunnels from future storm events. The data that was used to create this map was originally displayed on MTA’s website, in the map below and in other different reports. I had to create my own shapefiles to map the tunnels and include the attributes of each of them in order to compile the information that was dispersedly available.

With this data, I produced this map, which shows how long it took for each tunnel to reopen after Hurricane Sandy.

[Click on the tunnels to see more information about the tunnels, the degree of flooding caused by Sandy, the number of riders affected by their closure and the status of renovation plans.]