MTA Announces Completion of Repair Work Across New York City Subway

Photo courtesy of MTA

NEW YORK –– While much of the world was focused on the holiday season, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) New York City Transit announced on Dec. 31 that it had wrapped up a multi-year effort to clean and refurbish many stations across its system.

The MTA announcement said the effort “has brightened, cleaned and enhanced stations and significantly improved the rider experience. Fluorescent light fixtures in all 472 subway stations were converted to modern LED lights, with crews replacing the final fixtures at the Times Square–42 St station this week; crews repainted and replaced tiles across subway stations; more than 1,460 tons of bagged garbage were removed from all stations and nearly 700 tons of debris in between stations were cleared, among other improvement work.”

Demetrius Crichlow, the President of New York City Transit, said “NYC Transit is committed to providing safe and reliable service and that effort starts right when customers enter the system with brighter and cleaner stations. With historically high on-time performance, new ridership milestones and a continued emphasis on reviving stations, 2025 was a great year to be a subway rider.”   

MTA Chief Customer Officer Shanifa Rieara said “These improvements make a real difference in the day-to-day experience of our subway riders, giving them brighter, safer, and more welcoming stations across the system. From lighting upgrades to station renovation projects, these efforts reflect our commitment to serving the millions of New Yorkers who rely on us, and we will continue to make investments in the system both today and for years to come.”

LED Lighting 

In January 2024, Governor Kathy Hochul released a five-point safety plan for subway riders. This is when the conversion to all LED lighting across the New York subway system began. Since the program began , more than 181,000 fixtures throughout the system have been either been completely replaced or where existing fixtures could be converted to LED lights, the lights were replaced with LEDs. MTA was pleased to announce that this lighting work was completed well ahead of the mid-2026 target, and the conversion is expected to save approximately $5.9 million each year.

The move to LED lighting was driven by the fact that this lighting is more cost effective, but also brighter than florescent lighting, which provides clearer visibility for the nearly 4 million daily subway riders. The additional light will also provide enhanced images of the more than 15,000 security cameras across the subway system, which will result in clearer and more detailed videos that may need to be used by law enforcement.

New York City Transit is continuing to move to LED lights in other parts of the subway system, including aboard trains and AC-powered tunnels, which will result in further savings once completed. MTA reports that 73% of subway trains are equipped with LED lighting.

MTA also said that the LED conversion project was completed in tandem with New York City Transit’s ongoing “Revive” initiative, which piggybacks on planned weekend outages to give stations a complete makeover from top to bottom so customers return to an overhauled station. Crews completed 40 Revive projects in 2025 in the stations listed below:

• 81st St  
• 110th St Cathedral Pkwy  
• Beach 67th St. 
• 190th St 
• Bergen St. 
• 50th St. 
• Union St. 
• Central Ave  
• 53rd St. 
• Fresh Pond Road 
• 207th St  
• 176th St  
• Broad Channel 
• Saratoga Avenue 
• Cypress Avenue 
• Wall Street 
• Mets-Willets Point 
• Rockaway Ave 
• 23rd St  
• Beach 98th St  
• 23rd St  
• 110th St – Malcolm X Plaza 
• 25th Ave  
• Dyckman Street-200 Street  
• Montrose Avenue 
• Bay 50th St  
• Forest Hills – 71 Av  
• Grand Central  
• Simpson Street  
• Grand Central  
• Grand Central  
• Clark Street  
• 59th  
• Court Square – 23 Street  
• 145th St  
• Bergen St  
• New Lots Av 
• 28th St  
• Church Av  
• Graham Ave 

Deep Cleaning, Retiling, and Other Maintenance Work 

The past year also included crews repainting over 1.1 million square feet, which is enough to cover 243 regulation-sized basketball courts or 57 Olympic-sized hockey rinks. Also, more than 9,700 square feet of ties were installed or replaced in the past year, with this number of square feet being larger than the famous ice rink at Rockefeller Center. Other rooms in these stations were refreshed, including a deep-clean of the HVAC system.

MTA adds that “The Revive initiative is just one part of the MTA’s state of good repair commitment, which also includes regular maintenance of all stations and tracks, especially garbage removal. New York City Transit utilizes the VakTrak, which uses suction to clean dirt and debris from the subway tracks. VakTraks run overnight and can cover 12 to 15 miles of track each night. All underground passenger tracks are vacuumed once every two weeks to prevent track fires and damage to the tracks. In 2025, VakTrak vacuums sucked up a total of 505.4 tons of debris from the tracks – more than double the weight of a blue whale. Crews also removed over 1,467 tons of trash from stations and removed almost 700 tons of debris from tracks in between stations – a total of 2,672 tons of garbage was removed from the subway system throughout 2025.