Subway riders are being squashed together on increasingly crowded trains and a lack of basic manners getting in and out of cars is contributing to a spike in delays, the Post writes.
The MTA is using new electronic train tracking system called I-TRAC, recently introduced on letter lines to better catch delays. New data from I-TRAC revealed that six million people crammed into subway cars on 29 different days in 2014 — the most since the MTA started tracking ridership. Most recently, weekdays trains experienced overcrowding delays a staggering 14,843 times by December 2014, that's a 113 percent increase from a year earlier.
And weekend trains were delayed in reaching the end of the line 2,314 times because of overcrowding in December, a 146 percent spike from 941 during that month in 2013.
The increase in crowding and delays likely is a fallout of populations shifts from Manhattan into the outer boroughs and the resulting movement of residents previously living in the outer boroughs being pushed further out to the fringes. Now more and more straphangers need to crowd onto the trains to reach Manhattan, and, unlike before, they're being packed in like sardines at the very beginning and end of the lines.
"I've seen children crushed," said Bronx rider Ansley Davenport, who added she's witnessed riders chide parents for bringing kids on the train during rush hour. She said she regularly has to let two crowded trains pass at the 14th Street station before she can board a train home to Pelham Parkway.
