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Subway delays caused by sick passengers on the rise
First responders carry a subway rider out of a Manhattan station entrance on a stretcher.
Getty
Emergency medical services carry a straphanger out of a Manhattan subway station on a stretcher.
Regular subway commuters are familiar with the announcement: “The train is delayed due to a sick passenger.”
In a system with 472 stations traveled by more than 4 million riders per day, some New Yorkers are bound to fall ill. Sometimes sick riders safely exit the train quickly and can wait for care on the platform. But when the passenger can’t exit the train, service is put on hold, causing delays that can cascade through the system.
In the first six months of the year, 1,345 such incidents of sick or injured passengers have spurred 8,878 subway delays for commuters, Metropolitan Transportation Authority data shows. The authority defines a delay as when a scheduled train arrives at its final stop more than five minutes late, when it skips a planned station or when it is canceled altogether. These incidents usually involve riders who have fainted or vomited; in other cases, passengers may have suffered a heart attack or a seizure, according to the Fire Department of New York.
Unlike delays spurred by signal problems or mechanical issues, holdups caused by sick or injured passengers are incidents the MTA has little power to prevent, and a Crain’s analysis of MTA data shows that they’re on the rise. In 2020, the number of unwell passengers who caused train delays was 1,662; in 2024, 2,443 sick passengers caused service to halt, MTA data shows.
Throughout the first half of 2025, the 2, 4 and 6 lines — which transport a large number of the subway system’s riders — have experienced the most sick or injured passengers, according to MTA data.
As subway ridership has gradually rebounded following the Covid-19 pandemic, the number of sick or injured riders on the subway has also increased. In 2020 subway ridership dropped to 37% of prepandemic levels; by 2024 it had increased to 70%. During that four-year timeframe, the number of unwell passengers who caused train delays increased by 47%, according to MTA data. Throughout that stretch of time, more than 10,000 sick and injured passengers caused delays across the subway. That is more than the amount of delays caused by train car equipment, such as malfunctioning train doors, over that time.
The biggest change throughout this period occurred from 2021 to 2022, when a 40% jump, from 1,710 to 2,398, in the number of sick passenger-related incidents occurred. That change lines up with a spike in subway ridership that occurred in 2021, from 760 million (45% of prepandemic levels) to exceeding 1 billion (60% of 2019’s ridership) in 2022. Subway ridership in 2023 and 2024, respectively, ticked up to 67% and 70% of prepandemic ridership levels.
When a rider reports an unwell passenger, New York City Transit protocol dictates that a transit worker report the sick customer to the Operations Control Center, said MTA spokeswoman Kayla Shults. If the person is conscious and physically able to depart the train, they will, and a transit worker or a New York Police Department officer will wait with them until emergency medical services arrive. But if the person is physically unable to move, unconscious or, in the worst case, is dead, the train must wait for first responders to remove the rider from the train, added Shults.
The MTA doesn’t classify a rider who may have died by suicide after jumping in front of a train among sick or injured passengers; such delay-causing situations tend to fall into the category of an incident that involved public conduct, crime or police response.
When it comes to delays that can be controlled, the state budget this year approved $68 billion for the MTA to invest in the region’s mass transit to keep it from falling into disrepair.
https://www.crainsnewyork.com/transportation/new-york-city-subway-delays-over-sick-passengers-rise