NYC Subway
472 stations, open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
The subway was built to get traffic off the streets. By the 1890s Manhattan was jammed, and city leaders pushed for trains underground.
The first line opened in 1904. The city paid for it and owned it; a private company, the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT), built and ran it.
Sections
Key numbers
Where the facts come from
MTA and NYC Transit pages, reports and route data; NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission reports; the Historic American Engineering Record (Library of Congress); and the IRT’s own 1904 book.
A ride
First, a trip from the sidewalk to a moving train.
The train had an A on it. Next: what that A means.
Route names and colors
That A names the train’s route: one train service. There are 7 numbered routes, 15 lettered routes and 3 permanent shuttles.
Routes run on tracks called lines. The A, C and E all run on the 8 Avenue line.
Routes that share a main line through Manhattan, called a trunk, share one color. So the A, C and E are all blue in the MTA’s route data.
Some route names end in Express, some in Local. The next section explains the difference.
Express and local
Local or express? A local stops at every station. An express runs on its own middle tracks and stops only at express stations.
Pick a train.
At an express station, the local and express in one direction share an island platform: a platform between two tracks. Changing trains is a walk across it.
At a local station the platforms sit outside the tracks, one on each side.
A same-platform change is also how a rider who missed a stop gets back.
The first line had express tracks from the start: City Hall to 96th Street, 6½ miles.
The map
The map puts every route on one page. Its dots show where every train stops and where only locals stop.
The 2025 map is a diagram: straight lines that are easier to follow than the real curves.
Three maps
| 1972 | Vignelli diagram: geometric. |
| 1979, 1998 | Hertz map, designed in 1979, updated in 1998. Set the brand colors still in use. |
| 2025 | First new design since 1979. Straight lines, white background, black dots, black route symbols with white characters. |
The map shows typical weekday service. Late nights and weekends change some routes.
Check: Basics
History
Why are some routes numbers and others letters? The answer is history.
Three operators built the subway: two private companies, the IRT and the BRT (later the BMT), and the city’s own IND.
In 1940 the city bought the two companies’ equipment and operating rights and ran all three as one system.
The split still shows. Numbered routes are mostly former IRT lines; lettered routes are former BMT and IND lines.
Timeline
On opening day the IRT was only the sixth subway in the world. It was also the longest line ever finished as one project.
A and B Division
The 1940 merger left two divisions, and the split still matters. The subway is really two systems on one map. A train from one does not fit the other.
Side by side
A Division
Former IRT. Numbered routes and the 42 St Shuttle.
Smaller tunnels, narrower cars.
2,890 cars, each 51 ft 4 in. long.
Rush hour: 110 riders per car.
B Division
Former BMT and IND. Lettered routes, plus the Rockaway Park and Franklin Av Shuttles.
Bigger tunnels, wider cars.
3,589 cars, 60 ft 6 in. or 75 ft long. New cars: 60 ft only.
Rush hour: 145 to 175 riders per car.
Car lengths
A new line can join one division, never both.
Car types
Within each division, cars come in models named with an R and a number. The R46 is the oldest in the fleet.
The new R211 has doors 58 inches wide, 8 inches wider than older cars, to speed up boarding.
Fewer seats (30 vs 42) leave more room to stand and move.
The R211 entered service on the A and C. It replaces the R46.
It also has cameras, more accessible seating, digital displays and brighter lighting.
Age
A car is past its design life at 40 years. 39% of A Division cars are reaching it.
About 1,500 new cars are planned to replace the R62, R62A, R68 and R68A.
The oldest cars carry air conditioning under the floor; newer ones have it overhead. The older classes were three times more likely to have a hot car.
Construction
Before any car could run, the tunnels had to be dug. Most of the first line was built by cut and cover: dig an open trench, build the subway in it, then put the street back.
The Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) report called cut and cover the basic method for building a city subway.
Digging began March 24, 1900. The line was finished ahead of schedule in late October 1904.
Under Broadway
Broadway’s traffic was too heavy to close, so the street had to stay open by day.
Crews dug from openings in the street. Dirt was hoisted to platforms, then sent down chutes into wagons.
Not all underground
About 60% of the 472 stations are underground.
The rest are elevated, on embankments or in open cuts. An open cut is a trench below the street, open to the sky.
Cortelyou Road in Brooklyn is an open-cut station.
Signals
Once trains share a tunnel, something must keep them apart. Signals keep trains a safe distance apart and at safe speeds. They look like traffic lights beside the track.
Fixed blocks
- The track is cut into blocks, some over 1,000 feet long.
- A train’s wheels close an electric circuit in the rails: the block reads occupied.
- Red for stop, yellow for caution, green for proceed.
- A trip arm at each red signal brakes any train that runs it.
The system only knows a train is somewhere in a block, so trains run farther apart.
More detail
The fixed-block technology dates to the 1904 opening.
Its relays are delicate and need more upkeep. Few other transit agencies still use some of its parts.
CBTC
Communications-based train control (CBTC) keeps each train in radio contact with a central system.
The clear zone moves with the train: a moving block. Trains can run closer, so more of them can run.
L in 2009, 7 in 2019. On time near or above 90%.
A, C, E on 8 Av, 59 St to High St. Queens Blvd, nearly done. The F on the Culver Line; the G on the Crosstown.
529 miles of signaling, 118 interlockings. An interlocking is a set of switches and signals wired together so trains move through safely.
Power
Signals say when a train may go. Power makes it move. Trains run on electricity from a third rail beside the running rails. Substations along the line feed it.
Path of the power
Volts
The MTA gives two figures for the third rail: 600 volts DC in its 2023 needs assessment, 625 on its subway facts page.
The 1904 line was built for 625 volts. The system uses nearly 2 billion kilowatt-hours a year.
1904 powerhouse
The chief engineer, William Barclay Parsons, chose electricity while it was still new as a way to move trains.
The IRT made its own power. Its powerhouse could produce 100,000 horsepower and hold more than 30 million pounds of coal.
Stanford White designed the outside.
Both divisions use similar signals and third-rail power. What keeps their trains apart is tunnel and station size.
Inside a station
Every part from the last few sections meets in one station. Tap a number.
Accessibility
One part of that station, the elevator, is there for access. An accessible station has elevators or ramps from street to platform. They serve riders with disabilities and anyone who cannot use stairs: strollers, luggage, older riders.
A 2022 agreement sets Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) access at 95% of stations by 2055, if capital plans are funded.
The 2025–2029 capital plan puts $7.1 billion toward more than 60 stations.
Elevators, gates and cars
42 stations made accessible since 2020.
306 station elevators and 231 escalators, counting the Staten Island Railway.
Some deep stations have only elevators and escalators. If they fail, trains skip the station.
Elevators and escalators are replaced every 17 to 22 years.
Every accessible station has at least one AutoGate, a wide fare gate.
Wheelchairs ride near either end of the car, clear of the doors.
Check: How it works
Service patterns
The map shows typical weekday service. At other times, some routes change.
Skip-stop: at rush hour some J/Z stations get only the J, some only the Z, and some both.
It runs toward Manhattan from about 7 to 8:15 AM, and back from about 4:30 to 5:45 PM.
Day and night
Late at night many expresses run local, and some routes stop running.
Some routes run on weekdays only.
The 2 runs express in Manhattan and local in the Bronx and Brooklyn: one route, two patterns.
Station art
Hidden machines aside, the stations were built to be seen. Each 1904 station got its own colors and decoration.
In 1891 the Rapid Transit Commission asked for brightness and cheerfulness. The 1899 IRT contract called for white or light tile.
The architects were Heins & LaFarge. The scheme recalls the Paris Metro.
City Hall station
City Hall station sits on a single loop track under the park.
It closed to riders on December 31, 1945: trains had grown too long for its curved platform.
Its tile vaults were built by Rafael Guastavino’s method. A 1979 landmark report says it was still a turnaround loop for 6 trains.
Entrances
Kiosks
Cast iron and wire glass over the stairs. The first line needed 133.
None of the originals survive; Astor Place has a copy.
Control houses
Small buildings over the stairs, at six stations.
In 1979 the one at 72nd Street was one of three left.
Records
Some stations and routes stand out from the rest.
Highest and deepest
Busiest stations, 2019
Longest and most
Track gauge, the distance between the rails, is 4 feet 8.5 inches: the same as major American railroads.
In 1904 tunnel lighting was kept low so the red, yellow and green signals stayed easy to see.
42 St–Port Authority
Everything above meets at one station: 42 St–Port Authority.
Around the clock
The station
A, C, E: the blue 8 Avenue trunk, built by the city as the IND. B Division.
On the MTA list of accessible stations.
CBTC under way on 8 Av from 59 St to High St.
The R211 started service on the A and C.
Part of the Times Sq-42 St/42 St complex, the busiest in 2019: 65,020,294 riders.
From here, walk to Times Sq and take the 42 St Shuttle to Grand Central.
The A from 207th Street to Far Rockaway, more than 31 miles, passes through.
Check: Details
Glossary
Quiz
Flashcards
Questions
Sources
Each Source tag opens a quote checked word for word against the source, with a link to it.
Not found
- Exact A and B Division car widths in a public MTA document
- A primary source for the IND opening date
- An MTA page explaining the trunk color rule in words
- A current MTA statement on City Hall station tours or 6 train turnarounds (the 1979 report is the latest here)