Transit App Shows Rat Activity on the NYC Subway

Rat Detector

Public transit app Transit created the “NYC Subway Rat Detector”, a NYC metro map that shows at which subway stop the city’s ubiquitous rats are most populous. It also can recommend lesser rodent-infested routes to take if a traveler really wants to avoid rats. The information about rats in the subways comes from riders traveling in all five boroughs.

You got a problem, New York. A big rat problem. But just how many MTA-riding rodents are out there? And where? We enlisted thousands of rodent spotters across the five boroughs to rank the rattiest stations.

The three stations that have the highest rat population are 191st Street in Washington Heights, Grant Avenue near East New York in Brooklyn, and 181st Street also in Washington Heights. The info is available as part of the Go feature on the Transit app, which offers real-time information on rats, as well as subway and bus schedules.

More than 1.2 million New Yorkers use Transit every month to get around, relying on features like GO, our step-by-step navigator. GO tells you when to leave for your stop, when to transfer, and more. When we detect that you’ve arrived at a subway station? We ask if you see any rats. The results are in. And the rats. They’re everywhere. ….Beyond the closing doors, the rodents roar.

Rat Detector Screens
Lori Dorn
Lori Dorn

Lori is a Laughing Squid Contributing Editor based in New York City who has been writing blog posts for over a decade. She also enjoys making jewelry, playing guitar, taking photos and mixing craft cocktails.