Stop the Stop: A Quantitative Case Against 3rd Ave
By Josh.
Ride the L into Manhattan and you have seen it: the train pulls into 3rd Ave, the doors open, almost nobody moves, and everyone on board waits anyway. So we routed every weekday subway trip in New York through the real timetable, twice, to find out what that stop actually costs. Of the 356 stops we tested, 3rd Ave is the one riders would be best off without, and it is not close.
A Note To The Skeptics
To those who think closing a subway stop is absurd: usually, you are right. At our default settings, 298 of the 356 stops would cost riders time if cut, Penn Station by about 22,000 hours a day. But 3rd Ave sits a five-minute walk from both of its neighbors, and our model is conservative where it counts. It treats walking as twice as painful as riding and ignores the new riders faster trips would attract. It also leaves out crowding, delays, buses, big transfer hubs, and the last stop on each line.
Understanding The Data
We start with the MTA's origin-destination estimates: about 4.05 million trips on an average weekday, January to August 2026. Every trip is routed on the MTA's weekday timetable with RAPTOR, a standard transit routing algorithm that finds the fastest way somewhere on the trains that actually run, counting the wait on the platform and up to three transfers. Then we delete a stop and route everything again.
The one thing the timetable cannot tell us is how long a stop takes. The MTA does not publish it, so we assume 50 seconds to brake, open the doors, and speed back up, and we test that assumption later.
Exhibit A: Stopping vs. skipping 3rd Ave
The chart on the main page runs this test on every stop and plots the net hours saved each weekday. Right of zero, closing the stop helps. Left of zero, it hurts, and that side is compressed so the busiest stops fit.
Now onto the findings.
Who's Actually Getting Off?
Not many. About 177,000 trips pass through 3rd Ave on a typical weekday, while only 11,000 start or end there. At the evening rush it gets starker: between 5 and 6pm, 1 in 19 people on the train at 3rd Ave is getting on or off. Next door, Union Sq moves 13 times as many L riders in the same hour.
Exhibit B: L riders at each stop, 5 to 6pm
Seconds Or Minutes?
50 seconds sounds small until it costs you a connection. A rider leaving Bedford Av at 8am for Grand Central reaches Union Sq at 8:06 today, is ready to board at 8:09, and watches the 4 express leave 30 seconds earlier. They take the 6 local and arrive at 8:17. Without 3rd Ave, they make the express and arrive at 8:12:30, 4½ minutes sooner.
Exhibit C: One commute, two timelines
This is not a fluke. About 25,000 trips a day save more than a minute the same way.
Who Wins?
Mostly Brooklyn, but not only. Trips to and from Bedford Av alone save 259 hours a day, and the gains ripple out through Williamsburg and Bushwick to Myrtle-Wyckoff, then across Manhattan to Grand Central and Times Sq. Add it all up and riders save 2,655 hours on trains every weekday.
Exhibit D: Hours saved per weekday, by station
What About The Neighbors?
Somebody pays, and it is 3rd Ave's own riders, who would walk to 1st Ave or Union Sq instead. We measured that walk on real streets from the station entrances, starting at every corner closer to 3rd Ave than to any other station, and weighted each corner by the people who live and work there. The average is 173 meters, about 2 minutes.
Exhibit E: Station entrances on 14th St
Exhibit F: 3rd Ave's walkshed
Put both groups on one chart and the trade is lopsided. About 195,000 trips a day get faster, about 11,000 get a longer walk, and the other 3.8 million do not change at all.
Exhibit G: Change in travel time, per trip
Does It Hold Up?
Walking feels slower than riding, so we count every minute of it twice. That turns the walk into 832 hours a day, against 2,655 hours saved on trains: 1,824 hours back, net, every weekday. We also swept the two assumptions that matter most. Closing 3rd Ave comes out ahead in 39 of 40 combinations, losing only if stops take 20 seconds and a minute of walking counts as three.
Exhibit H: Net hours saved, by stop time and walking penalty
Retrospect
Our finding may sound like a commuter's pet peeve, but the numbers back it up. 1,824 hours a day is more than 200 full workdays handed back to riders, every weekday, for the price of a two-minute walk for a few thousand people. If you ride the L, some of that time is yours. .
Sources
Ridership: MTA Subway Origin-Destination Ridership Estimate. Schedule: MTA weekday GTFS. Streets: OpenStreetMap. Entrances and stations: MTA. Residents: 2020 Census. Jobs: Census LEHD. Routing inspired by Anita's NYC Subway Riders. The code, data, and methodology are on GitHub.