The Metropolitan Transportation Authority said on Thursday that it was planning to replace up to a third of its roughly 6,500 subway cars, many of which have been in service since Ronald Reagan was president.
Jessie Lazarus, the authority’s chief of rolling stock, said the agency is seeking bids from manufacturers to replace 1,140 train cars on the Nos. 1, 3 and 6 lines, with the potential to order another 1,250 cars on the Nos. 2, 4 and 5 lines.
“This is going to be the single biggest subway car order the M.T.A. has ever made,” Ms. Lazarus said, standing inside a recently built train facility in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. The first new cars from the order are expected in the early 2030s.
Ms. Lazarus said the authority is soliciting ideas for the new fleet, called R262s, to incorporate a range of features, including clearer audio in cars, an updated brake system and the possibility of more “open gangway” designs — trains where passengers can walk from one car to the next along the train’s length, in a continuous line. As much as 60 percent of the new order could be open gangway.
The total price of the order won’t be known until transit officials review proposals from manufacturers, but the agency has committed $11 billion through 2029 for the purchase of new subway and commuter railroad cars. Proposals are due in September, and a contract is expected to be awarded by early 2028, according to the governor’s office.
“We are in the midst of a public transit renaissance in New York,” Ms. Hochul said in a statement, “with growing ridership, the best service in a generation and historic investments to modernize the lifeblood of our city.”
The new trains will mean an overdue retirement for one of the system’s oldest models, the R62, known for its dusty silver cars filled with bright orange and yellow seats. Those cars, built in the 1980s, are past or at the end of their expected 40-year life span, and today are the cause of frequent delays.
The R62 trains break down at an average of every 89,000 miles, whereas their replacements could travel more than twice that distance before having issues. (A small share of train cars built in the 1970s are also still in service, but are already slated for replacement.)
The authority can pay for the new trains thanks to a $68 billion capital plan that Gov. Kathy Hochul approved last year. It represents the agency’s largest ever five-year budget to repair and improve the region’s mass transit system, including the subway, buses and two commuter railroads.
Train replacement is a high priority for the authority, because old cars are among the most frequent sources of rider aggravation.
Out of 2.7 million scheduled subway trains in 2024, nearly 487,000 — about one in five — were late, according to the state comptroller’s office. And subway car issues were among the most common reasons for delays.
The subway carries over four million passengers on a busy weekday, less than before the coronavirus pandemic, though ridership is trending upward. In December, subway ridership had reached more than 85 percent of its 2019 level, according to the M.T.A.
The new train plans are the latest effort by the M.T.A. to reinvigorate the century-old system, at a rare moment when the agency is flush with cash. The authority is installing a number of high-tech fare gates in places where fare evasion has been a major concern, and adding long-overdue elevators and other accessibility features at dozens of the system’s 472 stations.
Still, as officials looked to the future, they couldn’t help but take a swipe at some of their oldest trains.
“Sometimes when I board one, I’m not sure if I’m going to run into Cyndi Lauper or Run-DMC on the way to a Mets ticker tape parade,” Ms. Lazarus said.
Stefanos Chen is a Times reporter covering New York City’s transit system.
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