By Paul Liotta
Staten Island Advance
NEW YORK — Residents of the five boroughs with life-threatening emergencies have to wait longer than ever for an ambulance, according to recently published data.
The 2026 Mayor’s Management Report found an average ambulance response time of 13:09 for life-threatening medical emergencies in the most recent fiscal year, which ended in late June.
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That’s up from 11:55 in the prior fiscal year and 9:34 in fiscal year 2021, the 2021 Mayor’s Management Report shows. Worsening ambulance response times have been a growing concern in the five boroughs over the past decade.
A decline in EMS personnel across the FDNY, along with the private and volunteer sectors, has been a contributing factor to slower ambulance response times around the city.
In November, FDNY EMS Chief Paul Miano told the City Council that it loses about 10 in-service ambulance units daily due to insufficient staffing.
The 2026 Mayor’s Management report released late last month outlined a series of efforts the FDNY is making to address the increasing response times.
Largely focused on efficiencies, the efforts include the increased use of units that treat on-scene, particularly for low-acuity mental health calls, a staff-optimization unit that works to keep more units in service and a borough-based command structure to allow for more dynamic responses to changes in the field.
Despite being a five-borough concern, Staten Island has offered something of a bright spot with the best times in the city, according to an Independent Budget Office report released in April.
The report analyzed EMS response times from 2014 to 2024, finding slower responses across the five boroughs, but some of the fastest on Staten Island .
FDNY breaks down EMS responses into two categories, basic life support and advanced life support. Both categories have seen similar slowing trends over the past 10 years.
Staten Island saw the best response times for advanced life support in 2024 with 82% of those calls seeing response times of less than 10 minutes. The Bronx was the worst in 2024 in that category with 75% of advanced life support calls seeing response times of less than 10 minutes.
The Island also saw the lowest decline in that metric over the past decade — a decrease of just four percentage points — with 86% of advanced life support call taking less than 10 minutes in 2014. Manhattan saw the sharpest decline, going from 90% to 78% of advanced life support calls taking less than 10 minutes.
Basic life support calls also saw response times increase over the past 10 years. In Queens, the percentage of response times less than 10 minutes for basic life support calls went from 72% in 2014 to 56% in 2024. Staten Island’s numbers in that metric went from 78% to 68%.
An increased number of calls and lower staffing levels have been main contributors to the growing response times, according to the report.
“Lack of appropriate staffing levels for these most critical calls likely contributes to longer response times‚" part of the report’s conclusion reads.
Government officials, union leaders and other advocates working to address the EMS personnel shortage mostly focus on one thing — pay parity.
Base salary for an FDNY EMT tops out around $59,000 after five years, while firefighters with the same years of service receive a base salary around $110,000.
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