Harlem Has 3 of NYC's Worst Subway Stations, Riders Say

HARLEM, NY — Harlemites who complain about their commutes now have some data to back up their gripes: three of the neighborhood's subway stations have been named among the five worst in the city, according to a new rider survey conducted by the MTA.

Open for two weeks in mid-June, the survey gathered around 175,000 responses from subway riders, who were asked to describe their satisfaction with the lines and stations they used most frequently. The results were released on Monday during an MTA public meeting.

Five stations emerged as the city's worst, in terms of customer satisfaction, including three in Harlem: Central Park North-110th Street (on the 2-3 lines), 116th Street-Lexington Avenue (on the 6 line), and 125th Street-Lenox Avenue (on the 2-3 lines).

Central Park North-110th Street ranked lowest, with just 19 percent of respondents saying they were satisfied or very satisfied.

Reasons for low ratings largely hinged on "personal security, people behaving erratically, or people experiencing homelessness and [lack of] cleanliness," said Shanifah Riera, the MTA's acting chief customer officer, during Monday's meeting.

All four of those factors were named by users of the Harlem stations, as well as the two other stations on the bottom-five list: 191st Street in Washington Heights, on the 1 line, and Third Avenue-149th Street in the Bronx, on the 2 and 5 lines.

Since the twice-a-year survey was launched last year, some patterns have begun to emerge: the 116th and 110th Street stations have "have been rated poorly by customers for several survey cycles now," Riera said.

In 2020, a fire on a train at the 110th Street station killed 36-year-old train operator Garrett Goble, who had helped riders flee the station before perishing in the blaze. Authorities later arrested Nathaniel Avinger, a 50-year-old homeless man, and accused him of deliberately setting the fire.

Overall, subway riders reported a 48 percent satisfaction rate across the system during the June survey. The highest-rated station in the entire system was Eastern Parkway–Brooklyn Museum station on the 2-3 lines, where about 91 percent of riders had good things to say.

Most of the "best" stations are either newly constructed or were recently renovated, Riera aid.

With the survey results in hand, Riera said the MTA will "look at these findings in greater detail in an effort to help define and support improvements and initiatives."