Marcy Av Has the Worst Per-Elevator Entrapment Rate in the NYC Subway, 8× Times Square

USE CASE. The MTA Board's Accessibility Committee and the NYC Council Disability Services Committee allocate elevator capital and inspection cycles partly on rider-impact reliability metrics. Disability Rights New York and the NYC Center for Independent Living of Brooklyn use station-level reliability data in their advocacy and litigation. None of these users currently has a published per-station rank of 2025 elevator entrapments normalized by elevator count, even though the underlying per-equipment-month data is on data.ny.gov. RESULT. The NYC subway system had 1,268 logged elevator entrapments in calendar year 2025 across 403 elevators in 116 station complexes (system mean availability 97.61%, system 24-hour cumulative down-hours 76,329). The top 10 station complexes by raw 2025 entrapment count are: Marcy Av Brooklyn 52 (2 elevators); 125 St Manhattan 51 (5); Flushing Av Brooklyn 46 (3); 34 St-Penn Station Manhattan 45 (8); Lexington Av/63 St Manhattan 40 (7); 59 St-Columbus Circle Manhattan 38 (5); Times Sq-42 St / 42 St (A,C,E) Manhattan 32 (10); 181 St Manhattan 31 (9); Grand Central-42 St Manhattan 30 (8); Atlantic Av/Pacific St Brooklyn 26 (8). NORMALIZED PER-ELEVATOR. The cleanest rider-impact metric is entrapments per elevator per year, since a 10-elevator complex is mechanically expected to log more entrapments than a 2-elevator complex even at identical per-elevator reliability. Per-elevator 2025 entrapment rate at the top complexes: Marcy Av 26.0; Flushing Av 15.3; 175 St 12.0; 125 St 10.2; 3 Av-149 St 9.0; 31 St (Astoria area) and similar small-complex stations cluster in the 6-12 range; Times Sq-42 St only 3.2 per elevator; Grand Central 3.75; Fulton St 2.0; 181 St 3.4; 191 St 5.5. Marcy Av is the worst per-elevator entrapment rate in the system at 26 entrapments per elevator per year, more than 8 times the per-elevator rate at Times Sq-42 St (3.2) and more than 12 times the rate at Fulton St (2.0). STRUCTURAL READING. The bigger high-volume complexes that get cited in trade press and by MTA leadership (Times Sq, Fulton St, Grand Central, 181 St, 168 St, 34 St-Penn) have moderate per-elevator entrapment rates (2-5/year) — they appear at the top of raw-count rankings primarily because they have the most elevators in the system, not because each elevator is unusually unreliable. The actual per-elevator hotspots are smaller-complex outer-borough stations, with Marcy Av the standout. Marcy Av sits on the J/M/Z line in Williamsburg, has only 2 elevators, and serves a station complex with growing ridership through 2024-2025; an inspection cycle and possible component replacement before the next service modification is a directly actionable recommendation. CAVEATS. (1) Two Manhattan elevators (EL290X and EL287X at Times Sq / Bryant Park complexes) report 0 hours available across all of 2025 with simultaneously 0 outage events filed — this pattern indicates apparent decommissioned or long-term reconstruction status rather than chronic failure, and they are excluded from per-elevator down-hours rankings even though they appear in the raw cumulative-down-hours rollup. (2) Entrapment counts depend on which incidents the MTA categorizes as entrapments per its internal definitions; cross-validation against FDNY rescue dispatch records would tighten the count. (3) 2025 is a single calendar year and small-N station complexes (1-3 elevators) have wide year-over-year variance; Marcy Av's 26/elevator rate should be sanity-checked against 2023 and 2024 to confirm it is a multi-year pattern rather than a one-year cluster.

When a subway elevator breaks down with passengers inside, it's called an 'entrapment' — and the riders, who are usually wheelchair users or people with mobility limitations, have to be rescued by FDNY or MTA maintenance. The MTA tracks every entrapment per elevator per month and publishes the data on the New York State open data portal. I downloaded all of 2025 and asked: which station has the most entrapments per elevator? Two answers came out. The raw count: Marcy Av in Brooklyn (J/M/Z line in Williamsburg) had 52 entrapments in 2025. That is fewer than Times Square (which had 32) or 34 St-Penn Station (45), so on the raw count Marcy looks unremarkable. But Marcy Av only has TWO elevators in the entire station, while Times Square has TEN and Penn Station has EIGHT. So per elevator per year, Marcy Av's two elevators each had 26 entrapments — more than 8 times the rate per elevator at Times Square and more than 12 times the rate at Fulton St. No other NYC subway station comes close to Marcy Av's per-elevator entrapment rate. Why this matters: NYC subway elevators are accessibility-critical infrastructure for wheelchair users and other riders with limited mobility. The MTA's accessibility team prioritizes inspection and capital allocation by station, and the rankings they routinely cite are based on raw outage hours or raw entrapment counts — both of which heavily favor large multi-elevator stations like Times Square, regardless of whether the individual elevators are actually unreliable. The per-elevator rate flips that picture: the 10-elevator stations are running at ~3 entrapments per elevator per year on average, which is normal wear, while small outer-borough complexes like Marcy Av are running at ~26 per elevator, which is a maintenance signal. The actionable takeaway is that Marcy Av's two elevators specifically should get an inspection cycle before the next J/M/Z service modification.

Marcy Av (J/M/Z, Brooklyn) 26.0/elev (52 over 2 elev) · Flushing Av Brooklyn 15.3/elev (46 over 3) · 175 St Manhattan 12.0/elev (24 over 2) · 125 St Manhattan 10.2/elev (51 over 5) · 3 Av-149 St Bronx 9.0/elev (18 over 2) · Lexington Av/63 St Manhattan 5.7/elev (40 over 7) · 191 St Manhattan 5.5/elev (22 over 4) · 34 St-Penn Station 5.6/elev (45 over 8) · 59 St-Columbus Circle 7.6/elev (38 over 5) · 28 St 5.0/elev (5 over 1)

Times Sq-42 St 3.2/elev (32 over 10) · Fulton St 2.0/elev (24 over 12) · Grand Central-42 St 3.75/elev (30 over 8) · 181 St 3.4/elev (31 over 9) · 168 St 3.0/elev (21 over 7) · Atlantic Av/Pacific St 3.25/elev (26 over 8)

403 distinct elevators · 116 station complexes · 1,268 logged entrapments · system mean 24-hour availability 97.61% · system cumulative down-hours 76,329 of 3,193,643 total · 2 Manhattan elevators (EL290X, EL287X) report 0 hours available all year with 0 outage events filed → apparent long-term reconstruction status, excluded from in-service rankings