Some Subway Commutes Could Get Faster With New Speed Limits

NEW YORK — Some subway commutes could soon speed up from a trudge to a crawl. New York City Transit has started revamping train speed limits to improve travel times without sacrificing safety, officials announced Monday.

The agency plans to increase allowed top speeds in more than 100 places by the springtime as part of President Andy Byford's "Save Safe Seconds" initiative. Changes took effect this past weekend on the N and R line between 36th Street and 59th Street in Brooklyn, where five 15 MPH speed limits rose to 20 or 30 MPH, NYC Transit said.

A safety committee has approved 29 other increases on several lines to be implemented in the coming weeks, officials said. While the higher limits are expected to make an immediate difference in "optimal conditions," NYC Transit said that factors such as congestion and track work can also impact speeds.

"Subway cars have come a long way in safety and performance since the system’s speed limits were first put in place up to a century ago, and some speed-regulating signals have become miscalibrated over time, forcing trains to go slower than they need to," Byford said in a statement. "We’re taking a fresh look, with no compromise to safety, at how to reduce delays and get people to their destinations sooner."

NYC Transit said it has also identified about 267 faulty timer signals, which trigger trains' brakes if they're traveling faster than is allowed. Such broken signals can force trains to brake even when they're going below the speed limit, according to an analysis The New York Times published in May.

Some 95 percent of the roughly 2,000 timer signals across the system have been tested since late August and about 30 bad ones have been fixed, NYC Transit said.

Straphangers will feel the difference from the signal fixes in the long term, as long segments of repairs have to be finished before bulletins are issued and train operators get adjusted, the agency said.

Both the low speed limits and the timer signals were meant to prevent accidents but also caused trains to move slower than they could safely go, transit officials said.

The changes are pieces of the Save Safe Seconds campaign, which aims to improve service cheaply and simply by implementing better operating and service practices, NYC Transit said.

The initiative comes as the MTA Board, facing a massive budget deficit in future years, considers hiking fares and tolls in 2019.

(Lead image: Photo by Kathleen Culliton/Patch)