Spike In Subway Graffiti Has MTA Spending Big: Report

NEW YORK — Long thought a relic of the city's dingy past, it appears subway graffiti is making a comeback. The MTA has seen its graffiti-cleaning costs spike recently years as taggers have coated hundreds more trains, a new report says.

The transit agency shelled out more than $610,000 for graffiti cleaning last year as 765 subway cars suffered "major graffiti hits," THE CITY reported Monday. Those figures are way up from just two years before, when the MTA spent $131,539 on cleaning and saw 406 cars hit and pulled from service, according to the story.

Out-of-town taggers looking for social-media fame are reportedly driving the trend. But the cost is more than financial — it takes over two hours to clean up a major graffiti hit, THE CITY reported.

Thankfully the tags are on the way down — the first three months of this year saw 30% fewer graffiti hits than the same period last year, the story says.

Read THE CITY's full report here.