By Philip Newman
Overall the transit activist agency said subway cars are the dirtiest in five years, with cars on eight lines declining significantly after five years of getting cleaner.The Straphangers Campaign said 86 percent of the cars on the N line were clean, compared with only 14 percent on the 1/9 line, the dirtiest in the system. Things were not great on the E train, which was second worst in the city with only 35 percent of its cars in the clean category. The M, V, 7 and F ranked toward the bottom of the list of dirty trains.Survey agents rated 61 percent of cars citywide as clean, compared to 66 percent in previous ratings.”The decline in cleanliness is a bad sign that the recent cuts in car cleaning staff have taken their toll,” said Neysa Pranger, Straphangers Campaign coordinator, who directed the survey. The Straphangers noted that the New York City Transit Authority adopted a “cleaner deployment saving” program, meaning that the agency cut $8.9 million in 2001 and $8.4 million in 2004 in the number of subway-car cleaning staff. In 2005, the Transit Authority is saving $2.5 million by not filling subway-car cleaning vacancies.”The fewer elbows, the less elbow grease,” said Gene Russianoff, attorney for the Straphangers Campaign.The A and D lines ranked near the top of the best list right after the N with 81 percent for both. The G was next with 78 percent of its cars classified as clean; the W followed with 74 percent; the J/Z with 71 percent; and the Q at 64 percent. The R was rated at 59 percent.The cars were rated for cleanliness of floors and seats following the Transit Authority's official standards for measuring car cleanliness. Cars were rated as clean if they were “basically dirt free” or had “light dirt.” That means “occasional ground-in dirt but generally clean,” according to the TA.The survey was conducted on 2,200 subway cars on 22 subway lines between Sept. 19 and Dec. 27, 2004.Reach contributing writer Philip Newman by e-mail at news@timesledger.com or by phone a 718-229-0300, Ext. 136.
