Is it any surprise that after the MTA cut its cleaning staff by almost ten percent the state of our subways would decline in turn? That's right folks, its time for the annual Subway Shmutz report! According to the Straphangers Campaign the cleanliness of the whole NYCT system in 2010 declined by 4 percent from 2009 (when the system was already 7 percent dirtier than in 2008). The lines that saw the biggest deterioration? The 6, B, E, L and R trains. The R, in fact, was rated the dirtiest line in the system with only 27 percent of its cars being clean. Only the restructured M line, which jumped from 32 percent clean cars in 2009 to 61 percent in 2010, saw any statistically significant improvement.

On the opposite end of the spectrum from the M was the B, which went from 61 percent clean in 2009 to 37 percent clear in 2010. Fourteen lines (the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, A, C, D, F, G, J, N and Q) remained statistically unchanged.

As it has been for more than a decade, the survey was done based on 2,000 observations of subway cars by Straphangers workers and volunteers between September and November. Cars were rated following the MTA's official standards for measuring car cleanliness:

Cars were rated as clean if they were "basically dirt free" or had "light dirt" ("occasional 'ground-in' spots but generally clean").

Cars were rated not clean if they were "moderately" dirty ("dingy floor, one or two sticky dry spots") or heavily dirty ("Heavy dirt; any opened or spilled food, hazardous (e.g. rolling bottles), or malodorous conditions, sticky wet spots, any seats unusable due to unclean conditions").

What is most interesting to us, since the Straphangers Survey followed the MTA's guidelines, is that they came up with very different numbers than the MTA got in its bi-annual survey (the results of which you can see on page 8.7 of this PDF). As you might guess, the MTA thinks the subways are much cleaner than the Straphangers do. Guessing as to why the numbers are so different, the Campaign points out that their survey, among other small differences in methodology, "rates cleanliness throughout the day and night and on weekends." The MTA, on the other hand, only does its check between 8 a.m. and 10 p.m. (conveniently missing things like the garbage train). We've yet to hear back from the MTA as to why they think they found such different levels of cleanliness. But maybe while they figure it out they should rerelease this classic PSA?

You can see the full results of the Subway Shmutz report here: