How bad is the 5?

The 5, the express with more than one life

The 5 might be the most adaptable train in New York. On a weekday peak it runs from Eastchester–Dyre Avenue in the northeast Bronx all the way to Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn, covering two boroughs and the length of Manhattan's east side. Off peak it gives up on Brooklyn and turns back in Lower Manhattan. In the Bronx it keeps a branch alive that nothing else serves. One number, several different trains, depending on what the clock says.

The northern end is the oddity. The 5's Bronx branch was not built as a subway at all. The tracks were laid by an ambitious commuter railroad that went out of business, and the city took them over rather than let a working piece of infrastructure rot where it stood. That is why the Dyre Avenue section feels different from the rest of the system: wider curves, longer gaps between stations, and the unmistakable sense of having been inherited rather than designed from scratch.

Riders on the 5 come from places the tourist maps never mention: Eastchester, Morris Park, and the neighborhoods around Bronx Park and the zoo. The train then joins the trunk at East 180th Street and runs south through Harlem, the Upper East Side, and Midtown, stopping at Grand Central on the way. Past Bowling Green it dives under the river to Borough Hall and continues to the Barclays Center and Crown Heights when the schedule allows. It links a quiet residential Bronx to the busiest square footage in the country.

Because it uses the Lexington express tracks alongside the 4, the 5 often runs second in a race it cannot control, and the two trains trade places all day long. Where the 5 earns real loyalty is up in the Bronx, where its branch skips some of the slower sections and delivers a better ride than the alternatives. On a weekend the 5 can be the most comfortable train on the east side, half empty and running express, which is a rare and lovely thing in this city.

The line has a reputation for being the thoughtful one. It flexes its route instead of forcing riders through a fixed pattern, and it serves the ballpark and the museum corridors without pretending to be a tourist train. If you are heading to the Bronx on a weekend, the 5 is frequently the only sensible express between the northern branch and Manhattan, and the people who live up there plan their weeks around that fact more than any downtown commuter realizes.

What the 5 lacks is consistency. Its multiple service patterns mean a rider who boards without checking the signs can end up somewhere unexpected, and its dependence on shared tracks means it inherits every delay the 4 produces. Weekend service can shrink, and late at night it behaves differently again. The 5 rewards people who read and punishes people who assume, which is a fair description of the subway as a whole.

Judged on its best days, the 5 is one of the smartest rides in the system, quick through Manhattan and generous in the Bronx. Judged on its worst, it is confusing and unpredictable, a route that seems to change every few hours. The Upper East Side relies on it, the northeast Bronx depends on it, and Brooklyn sees it only when the schedule is kind. It is not the star of the green line, but it may be the most interesting member of the family.

At East 180th Street the 5 merges into the busier tracks of the 2's Bronx line and the ride changes personality within a station or two. Ridership thins out up on the branch, where the cars can feel almost private, and thickens the moment the train reaches the shared trunk. Few routes show you the edge of the network and the center of it in a single trip, which is a strange privilege. It means the 5 is often the emptiest train heading into the busiest part of the city.