(Bloomberg) -- A day after thousands of New York City subway riders were stuck underground in Brooklyn for more than two hours due to a power outage, transit officials said the incident illustrates the dire need to modernize the aging system.

A fire at a nearly century-old power substation during Wednesday’s afternoon rush hour left about 3,500 riders trapped on two trains and delayed service on other subway lines, Janno Lieber, chief executive officer of the state-run Metropolitan Transportation Authority, said Thursday at a news briefing. Governor Kathy Hochul directed the MTA and Consolidated Edison Inc. to investigate the cause of the outage, calling the incident “unacceptable.” 

The MTA’s power substations are a major challenge in delivering reliable service on its subway system, which handles about 4 million rides each weekday. The transit provider has identified $4 billion of projects in its next capital plan to modernize power substations and electrical infrastructure for its subway and commuter rail lines. Each power failure causes an average of 34 trains to be delayed, more than any other type of disruption, according to the MTA’s 2025—2029 capital plan.

“There is a 90-year-old electrical substation that had a fire, an explosion of some kind, because the door was off the hinges,” Lieber told reporters. “That speaks to the urgency of making the investments to the very old pieces of our system that we have identified.” 

Subway riders were stranded in hot train cars with no ventilation.

Carlota Caso, 25, a sales and marketing platform designer at Syntax Data in downtown Manhattan, was returning home to Brooklyn on a crowded F train. It stopped suddenly, and then the engine and ventilation system shut off. Many were concerned about passing out in the stuffy, packed car, Caso said. Other riders started cracking jokes.

‘Freaking Out’

“That’s when everyone started freaking out,” said Caso, who didn’t have a seat. “I was starting to get super-anxious, so I had to sit on the ground.”

Some riders began leaving the train on their own, exiting between subway cars, Caso said. Having people walking outside the trains made it more difficult for the MTA to restart service and evacuate riders, Lieber said.

After almost two hours, firefighters began evacuating her train, a process that took about 50 minutes, Caso said. 

Along with its power substations, aging tracks, signals and crumbling stations affect service. This year through October, there have been 589 major incidents, which are disruptions that delay 50 or more subway trains, according to MTA data. The bulk of those incidents are because of infrastructure problems. About 90% of the MTA’s next capital plan goes to rehabilitating and modernizing existing infrastructure for safety and reliability.

The agency runs the city’s subways, buses and the commuter railroads that serve the suburbs.

“We need real, real assets to be able to continue to run the system to give people the service they actually deserve and that they’re calling for,” Demetrius Crichlow, chief of MTA’s subways and buses, said during the press conference.

--With assistance from Magdalena Del Valle.

©2024 Bloomberg L.P.