New York City’s subway has 472 stations laid out across 665 miles of track. For decades, transit enthusiasts have jockeyed to set the record for the fastest time to travel through the whole system.
Last month, Kate Jones, a New Yorker now living in Switzerland, set a new standard. She completed the journey in 22 hours, 14 minutes and 10 seconds. Her time was certified last week by Guinness World Records.
“I wanted a problem to solve that would be interesting for my brain, but also like something that would get me moving physically,” Jones, 43, said over the phone. She said she spent months figuring out how to hit every station with the fewest repetitions and the fastest transfers — all while trying to avoid delays.
Kate Jones, the new record holder for the faster trip through every New York City subway station.
Her time was slightly longer than that of the previous record holder, Matthew Ahn, who in 2016 completed the so-called “Subway Challenge” in 21 hours, 28 minutes and 14 seconds. But that was before the MTA opened three new Second Avenue subway stations on the Upper East Side.
Jones’ record-setting run wasn’t her first attempt. She tried the challenge in 2014, and again a year later.
But after breaking her ankle while rock climbing last August, Jones said she wanted to give it another go. As April drew near, Jones still had two rods, two plates and 10 screws in her ankle, but said the race was her motivation to run again.
“I had lost the instinct to run, you know, the way a [stop] light changes and you wanna run across an intersection? I had to really think about it,” she said. “When there’s a train on the platform, the doors are closing, you have to run down the stairs and dive onto that train.”
Jones returned to New York last month for the challenge, and her first two attempts didn’t work out. She said her third attempt was promising, but during her 20th hour she made a blunder when she accidentally got on a train in the wrong direction. Due to late night track work, there was no way she’d be able to make it up in a reasonable amount of time.
She said she was ready to pack it up after that, but a friend encouraged her to try one very last time. She waited until the following Monday to try again.
The transfers worked out. The sprints paid off. She didn't even use OMNY — she paid with a MetroCard.
“I nailed every swipe, so, still a New Yorker,” she said. She set the record on April 17, celebrated with dumplings in Flushing, Queens — and took a plane back to Switzerland 14 hours later.
But before the ink on her record certificate had dried, a new challenger had entered the ring.
Daniel Wells as he attempts the Subway Challenge.
Queens resident Daniel Wells, 29, attempted to beat her time on Wednesday.
Wells began his journey at 1 a.m. at the Far Rockaway-Mott Ave terminal on the A line, the same place Jones began hers. And like Jones, he planned to finish his route at the end of the 7 line in Flushing.
Wells started with a patch of bad luck – his A train was scheduled to leave at 1 a.m., but was running more than 10 minutes late.
“In the end, the MTA is gonna MTA, it’s New York, it’s crazy, weird things happen,” Wells said. “A lot of its just luck.”
Later, Wells tried to sprint from the Ozone Park-Lefferts Boulevard station to catch an A train at the Rockaway Boulevard station located nearly a mile away, thinking it would shave 20 minutes off his time. But the rush didn’t end up saving him any time.
Daniel Wells as he attempts the Subway Challenge.
After seven hours, Wells had traveled up to the Bronx, back down to Lower Manhattan, and back up to the Bronx through Midtown. By that point, he was slumped on the floor of a 4 train car, leaning against a pole while taking deep breaths and careful sips from a small Poland Spring bottle, which was the only water he brought.
He’d only hit about a quarter of the subway system at that point. He ended up completing the run in 23 hours, 27 minutes and 9 seconds — lagging Jones’ record by more than an hour.
Unlike Jones, Wells said he doesn’t think he can try more than once: He doesn’t have enough vacation hours saved up for multiple attempts.
Daniel Wells as he attempts the Subway Challenge.
Ahn, the former record holder, said he was glad to hear more people are taking up the challenge.
“I'm glad that folks are still interested in the record! I really believe in the fundamental frivolousness of it, in a good way,” said Ahn. “And I think that's maximized when there are lots of folks interested in trying to break it.”
In the short term, Jones’ record appears to be safe, as construction this summer will temporarily close some stations. But there’s some hope for enthusiasts looking to break the record: The MTA is installing modern signals on subway lines across the city, which are designed to speed up trains.
The photo captions in this story have been updated with the correct spelling of Daniel Wells' name
