Help Find NYC's Worst Subway Line

NEW YORK CITY — Imagine breathing deeply into the hairy armpit of a complete stranger. Picture bird droppings on a grimy platform where rats fight over what was once, a very long time ago, cottage cheese. Smell the gassy fumes, the human bodies, the dirt. Wait a very long time.

Patch is conducting its own local take on March Madness and we need your help: You know it, you've lived it. Which is the worst subway line in New York City?

Is it that gassy will-it-won’t-it shut down L train? Or maybe the N and Q lines whose tracks seem to attract geese, goats and kittens? Or maybe the 6 train, which recently hosted a sewage-surfing flood rat? Or the 7 line which may be crumbling to bits and impaling a car as we speak.

The competition — like the drink you need after a 90 minute ride on the J train — will be stiff. And it’s up to you to decide.

Here’s how it’s gonna work:

This week we’re asking you to vote on which is the worst number line in New York City: Is it the 1/ 2/3 line, the 4/5/6 line or the 7 and various shuttles? (Yes we know shuttles aren’t numbers, but this is what happens when you ask journalists to do math.)

Next week, we’ll pit the letter lines against one another and you decide whether it sucks the most to take the A/C/E line, the B/D/F/M line, the N/Q/R/W line or those crazy dreamers who go where they please: the G, J, Z and L trains.

The winners of each competition will battle it out in week three, and for week four, individual trains will compete against one another to be named the worst train in New York City.

Make sense? Don’t worry about it. It’s the subway, it’s not supposed to. Just fill out this survey and share your subway horror stories. We’ll share the best (or the worst, depending on your outlook) with Patch readers in the week to follow.

Is your subway commute the worst in all of New York City? Prove it: