Cities 101: The Longest Subway Ride in NYC With One Swipe

In a sister challenge to the Guinness World Record attempts to ride the entire subway system, the WNYC data team has been in search of the longest subway ride one can take in New York City with one swipe. On the MTA’s list of subway facts, the longest route is supposedly between 241st Street in the Bronx and Far Rockaway, at 38 miles. The WNYC data team first found a route that takes much much more mileage–148 miles in fact and 45 transfers–between those two stations. Then they sent WNYC’s Jody Avirgan on the journey, who tweeted the experience.

At the same time, they built using MTA shapefiles by CUNY’s Steven Romalewski, that could calculate longest routes in the subway station, to be tested by readers sitting at their desk and pushing a button on the page. By the afternoon of September 4th, on the day of publication, someone had discovered yet a longer route between 241st Street and Far Rockaway at 154.6 miles with 54 transfers (shown in the top map).

You can try your luck with the tool embedded below. You can jump between random stations and see if you can get longer than 154.6 miles:

Next, read about the Top 12 Secrets of NYC subway.