Staten Island Railway Gets Sleek New Cars, But Seats Now Scarcer Than Express Runs

An overhaul of Staten Island’s train fleet promises a slicker commute for some, but less comfort for others—and offers a case study in urban transit trade-offs.

New Yorkers are not easily surprised, but even the most jaded Staten Island commuter may have blinked at the sight of sixty brand-new R211S train cars gliding into the borough’s lone railway this spring. Sleek, silent, and gleaming, these metallic carriages symbolize a long-promised modernization of a line that too often lagged behind Manhattan’s more storied subways—not least in comfort, reliability, and the indignities of seating. Yet with their arrival comes an unexpected twist: more space to stand, and much less to sit.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) has now deployed 60 of its 75 ordered R211S models on the Staten Island Railway (SIR), aiming to phase out creaky R44 cars that date back to the Nixon administration. This marks the first new rolling stock on the line since 1973. The upgrades include features familiar to any rider on new MTA rolling stock—a brighter interior, wider doors, and digital displays that announce stops with unambiguous clarity. But there is a hitch: fewer seats than before. As Selena Cuevas, riding from Pleasant Plains, put it, “It’s harder to get a seat… probably not the best.”

The redesign eliminates the L-shaped bench layout of the old cars, replacing it with longitudinal seating that hugs the walls. MTA spokespersons explain that this change, though unpopular among those who prefer sitting, liberates floor space for standing—a fair trade, they say, in a borough where trains can be ‘packed’ during rush hour and standing passengers, like sardines, outnumber those sitting. Five-car consists now run instead of four, but more space does not, riders find, add up to more comfort.

For Staten Islanders—the city’s often-overlooked ‘fifth borough’—the change is no trifling matter. SIR serves around 13,000 riders daily, a paltry figure compared to Lexington Avenue’s heaving platforms, but for these commuters, the railway is a lifeline. On morning runs toward the St. George Ferry, a seat is more than a luxury; it is a brief respite before the jostling transfer to Manhattan’s ferries and subways. That “much, much less” seating, as reported by another rider, Natalya from New Dorp, may seem an efficient sacrifice for speed and capacity, but it is hardly welcomed.

The MTA reckons that the R211S’s features justify the compromise. Its doors are eight inches wider than previous models, potentially shaving station stop times by nearly a third—a boon on a line where every minute counts in missing or making the next ferry. Real-time digital information displays lend a whiff of twenty-first-century efficiency. Upgraded lighting and double-pole handrails—designed to support the now more prominent standing cohort—make the ride brighter and, in theory, less hazardous during sudden stops. The hope, say transit officials, is smoother, quicker trips for all.

Yet the trade-off, as ever, falls most sharply on society’s more vulnerable. Elderly and disabled riders, for whom sitting is necessity, not preference, find themselves vying for a dwindling number of seats. While the MTA continues to keep some older models in reserve—an industry “best practice,” it claims—this is little comfort for those regularly elbowed aside during the evening scrum. The new seating calculus, well-intentioned as it may be, lays bare the perennial tension between systemwide efficiency and the democratization of comfort.

From a second-order vantage, rail modernizations such as this have more at stake than mere perception. Increasing standing room enables greater fluidity, higher capacity, and (potentially) better service frequency. In a city where public transit is both economic lifeblood and political football, these incremental gains matter: faster service may lure back riders lost during the pandemic, shoring up tepid farebox recovery rates and bolstering broader public support for capital investment. A less-crowded railway is also a safer and less stress-inducing one, and perhaps keeps a few more drivers out of cars on the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge.

Still, standing is no panacea. Crowding remains a chief complaint among New Yorkers, and the sight of unoccupied standing space does not entirely offset gripes about tired legs or commuter fatigue. To the extent that the R211S’s internal redesign encourages more efficient boarding and alighting, it is a welcome, if modest, nod to transit best practice. But social and political dividends—especially among those constituencies already prone to feel disregarded by metropolitan planners—may prove harder to reap.

Comparisons on track

Elsewhere in the global urban rail pantheon, similar shifts have met mixed reviews. London’s Overground, Berlin’s S-Bahn, and Tokyo’s Yamanote Line all have moved towards standing-friendly carriages with fewer seats on busy inner-city services, prioritizing flow over repose. These moves are invariably framed as an inevitable response to urbanization—a bow to the mathematical certainties of capacity in the face of rising demand. Yet in each city, planners must balance the needs of the commuter majority with obligations to inclusivity and accessibility.

For New York, the upgrade’s timing is suggestive. The MTA faces grim fiscal realities from low post-pandemic ridership and a capital plan in need of political goodwill. If the R211S rollout bodes well, Staten Island could become a test case for similar retrofitting elsewhere. Early signals, however, are ambiguous. Clean, climate-controlled trains with ample handrails and punctual announcements do make a difference. But a sense of crowding—no matter what the statistics report—remains psychological, and hard to shift by decree.

We would argue, with the Economist’s habitual scepticism, that the new cars represent a worthy engineering solution to the eternal urban dilemma: how to move more people, more quickly, with finite resources and brick-hard constraints. But the shift from seated to standing comfort, dressed up as modernization, is a stark reminder that progress seldom comes without losers. The MTA’s bet—that faster boarding and a dash of digital dazzle will compensate for less seating—may pay off only if its investments spur robust, sustained gains in service quality.

Peripheral boroughs like Staten Island have often been the forgotten stepchildren of New York’s transit empire. That its railway is first to modernize in this cycle is both anomaly and experiment. Whether these metallic upgrades can reconcile expectations with the tyranny of numbers will depend, ultimately, on whether standing up for progress leaves too many passengers merely left standing. ■