normal service resumed on April 21. From midday on March 29, 2020 to April 29, 2020, C trains were suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City, and A trains to Lefferts Boulevard ran local in their place. Maintenance and rider issues Criticism In August 2012, the Straphangers Campaign rated the C train the worst of the city's subway services for the fourth straight year. No other service has ranked worst for more than three years in a row. The group found that the C performed worst in three of the six categories in its annual State of the Subways Report Card: amount of scheduled service, interior cleanliness, and breakdown rate. It also ranked next-to-worst in car announcement quality, after the 7, but performed above average in regularity of service and crowding. The New York Times called the C the "least loved of New York City subway lines", citing its fleet of R32s, which were almost 50 years old at the time the Times reported on the issue. The New York Times has also stated that the C train "rattled and clanked along the deteriorating maze of tracks beneath the city, tin-clad markers of years of neglect." In 2017, the Times referred to the R32s on the C as the world's oldest subway cars "in continuous daily operation". The R32s were initially retired in late April 2020, but were temporarily pressed back into service from July through October 2020 and finally retired in early January 2022. In January 2020, the R179 fleet that replaced the R32 was pulled from service due to two incidents involving R179 cars. This resulted in some service cutbacks that were later somewhat reverted when the R179s were investigated and placed back into service. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City and too few crews to run trains, the route was suspended entirely from March 29 to April 29, 2020, when C trains began running 75 percent of normal service. The cutbacks meant that wait times during rush hours increased from 8 to 12 minutes. In March 2021, TWU 100, the union for subway workers, sued the MTA in order to prevent the reduced frequencies from being permanent. That same month, the MTA decided to bring back full C service; full service was restored in mid-2021. Improvements In 2011, problems with the R32s were at a peak as the fleet's failure