They say that if you give an inch, they'll take a mile, and so it goes for the city's favorite trash pandas. It isn't enough that raccoons have liberated a subway station in Canarsie for their own purposes—no, now they are making a direct assault on our entire subway system, causing a sharp increase in the amount of subway delays this year.
The CITY reports that according to internal MTA incident reports, there's been at least 11 incidents this year in which a raccoon caused a subway delay, the most recent being the incident up above which occurred on Nov. 16th. That's a dramatic increase over the total of five raccoon-related subway disruptions in 2018, and only one in 2016. Most of the incidents have occurred along the A, L and Q lines in Brooklyn and Queens, but occasionally they branch out:
Earlier this year, Gothamist reported that raccoons have been encroaching upon the E. 105th Street L train station in Canarsie for months; there is evidence that raccoons have been slowly taking over that station since at least 2013.
The CITY adds that overall, the city’s 311 system has logged 5,741 raccoon-related reports so far this year, which is pacing a little behind the approximately 7,000 complaints received in all of 2018. But there's still time.
Here is your important yearly reminder: despite the fact that NYers can't "possess a raccoon without a license, and licenses are not issued for pet wildlife," the city still encourages humans to coexist peacefully with our distemper-infected trash-nibbling brothers and sisters.
And because I am only human, I feel compelled to include my #1 all time favorite raccoon-related subway video below. It is a freakin' classic.
