By Philip Newman
The transit advocacy agency gave its No. 1 rating to the L line and attributed the high-placed rankings of the L and the No. 7 to the fact that both lines were involved in the New York City Transit Authority's new cleaning pilot project.The L subway line had 88 percent clean cars and the No. 7 and No. 1 lines were tied with 78 percent clean.Starting in September, the L and 7 lines participated in the New York City Transit Authority's new cleaning project ,which provided more cleaners working in a 24-hour system, the Straphangers reported.The survey was conducted on 2,200 subway cars covering 22 lines between Sept. 20, 2007, and Jan. 11, 2008.Straphangers surveyors rated 50 percent of subway cars in the system as clean, a small statistical improvement from 47 percent of cars rated clean in a survey done in 2005. No survey was released for 2006.The worst lines were the E and Q, with the smallest number of clean cars at 29 percent each. The E performed the worst in the survey two years ago with only 2 percent of its cars rated as clean.The most deteriorated line was the No. 4, which fell from 94 percent in 2005 to 38 percent in 2007. The No. 4 was the cleanest in the system in 2005.The rankings for other Queens-serving lines and their percentage of clean subway cars are:G (63 percent), N (63 percent), W (58 percent), F (56 percent), M (52 percent), V (48 percent), R (45 percent) A (43 percent), D (39 percent) and J/Z (33 percent).Reach contributing writer Philip Newman by e-mail at news@timesledger.com or by phone at 718-229-0300, Ext. 136.
