The Metropolitan Transportation Authority announced that more service will very soon be coming to multiple NYC subway lines on weekends.
There will be an increase in service on weekends along the 1 and 6 train lines, MTA Chair Janno Lieber said at a press conference Wednesday. Trains will be coming every six minutes instead of every eight minutes -- which Lieber admitted "it might not seem like much but when you’re standing on a hot platform those minutes really add up."
The agency hopes those two minutes saved will encourage more people to ride the subway over the weekends. Lieber said he was able to greenlight more service after the state added $35 million in the budget.
Riders have continually complained in surveys that one reason they avoid the subway was having to wait. But the MTA will be spending more of the $35 million it was budgeted by the state in the coming months to add service.
Get Tri-state area news and weather forecasts to your inbox. Sign up for NBC New York newsletters.
Last month more service was added along the G,J and M lines, the MTA said, and more midday service was added along the C line as well. Later in August, the N and the R trains -- sometimes referred to as the "Never" and the "Rarely" -- will get more midday service, too.
"What they’re saying to us is they would ride more frequently if we had more frequent weekend service, for example," said MTA Transit President Richard Davey.
Weekends getting extra attention as well because service on Saturdays and Sundays closer to pre-pandemic levels than weekdays are. To achieve that extra service, the MTA is adding hundreds of jobs. Demetrius Crichlow, the MTA's vice president of subways, said that the agency has hired "248 train operators and 223 conductors so far in 2023 alone."
But all those new hires need training first, meaning the expansion will be slow and steady.
The changes would come just over a week before the price of a bus and subway ride in the city is set to increase. Starting Aug. 20, the MTA will implement a 15-cent bump, bringing the price for a ride from $2.75 to $2.90.
A single-ride ticket will cost $3.25, while an unlimited ticket would cost $132 a month, up $5 from the current price. The MTA board unanimously voted in favor of the increase in July.
The new fares mark the first time that commuters have seen a price hike in the nation's largest mass transit system since before the pandemic. The MTA raised fares in 2019, but only on weekly and monthly MetroCards. The "base" subway fare was not raised at that time, nor was it raised in 2017, but most commuters don't pay the single-rise base fare anyway, so most experienced the increase four years ago.
Commuter rail fares would increase as well, going up from $250 per month to $260 for LIRR and Metro-North riders. However, the MTA recently announced a fare freeze for Metro-North riders west of the Hudson River. That freeze is set to go before the transit authority's board for approval.
That fare increase will come as the MTA said it would begin its fare free bus pilot on five routes -- one in each borough -- by late September. To see what lines would be made free, click here.
E-ZPass tolls on bridges and tunnels jumped from $6.55 to $6.94 on Aug. 6 — two weeks before the mass transit fare increases.
That's all ahead of congestion pricing, which is on track to be implemented in Spring 2024, which would add another expense for drivers entering Manhattan below 60th Street.
