The D, J, and Z Are The Most Reliable Subway Lines
The topic of which MTA network is the worst (hint: It’s the C, not the oft-disparaged G) is one oft-discussed by irritated straphangers. But which subway line is the best? It depends on how you weigh the factors. Is it the line with the least amount of construction? The one that doesn’t regularly turn into an express or local version of itself at random, forcing you to either zip frustratingly past your stop or add 10 minutes to your commute? Or is it the platform that doesn’t regularly smell of urine and garbage? One of the main points of a good subway line is reliability, or how many trains actually arrive on schedule According to some data-crunching from the New York Post, by that criteria, the best subway line in the whole damn system is the D train, the unsung hero of the orange-line cluster, hauling commuters all the way up to Norwood and all the way down to Coney Island.
Per the Post‘s data, the D train arrives on schedule 82 percent of the time on weekdays. The J and Z train are close behind it, reliably arriving punctually at 81.7 percent of the time. Plus, the J and Z are the most reliable trains running on the weekends. Bonus points for Bushwick!
Surprisingly, the L train is pretty close behind that, at 81.3 percent, but that must not factor in those weekends where the entire L train line is suspended, forcing people to board those semi-hellish replacement shuttles. The worst trains, reliability-wise, were the 5 and 6 lines, which come in at 67.8 and 70.1 percent on-time respectively.