Spiking ambulance response times spur calls for real-time tracking

This post was originally published on Politico.

Amid spiking ambulance response times in New York City, council members have a new idea for how to keep 911 callers informed.

911 EMERGENCY: An ambulance in New York City now takes an average of 13 minutes to reach someone in life-threatening distress.

That response time has risen five years straight and is up 41.2% from a decade ago, a city comptroller’s report revealed earlier this month. According to this year’s Mayor’s Management Report, which came out in September, ambulance response times to life-threatening emergencies shot up by almost 16% between fiscal year 2025 and fiscal year 2026 — the sharpest increase this decade.

A core part of the issue is that calling 911 does not necessarily mean an ambulance will be