Subway riders should just stay home on the weekends.
Workers routinely start late and finish early on costly maintenance jobs that require closing large swaths of the subway — wasting straphangers’ time and millions of MTA dollars, according to an audit released yesterday.
It’s all part of a massive boondoggle underground, where managers fail to get the subway up and running as quick as possible after service outages.
The amount of weekend service work more than doubled from 2008 to 2010, according to the audit by city Comptroller John Liu and state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.
And not all of those disruptions may be necessary.
In one glaring instance, hardhats finished their work on a shuttered subway line 10 hours ahead of schedule — but the MTA didn’t resume service.
In all, four of those weekend jobs went over budget by $26.6 million.
Even local businesses have been hit by the disruptions.
From January to March 2010, sections of the 7 line had nine consecutive weekend outages — causing a 30 percent drop for some Long Island City shops.
“It’s bad,” said Judith Martin, from the Hunters Point Dental Service on Vernon Boulevard.
Subway chief Thomas Prendergast said some of the delays are due to safety procedures like shutting down and restoring electricity.
“We make every effort to minimize customer inconvenience by coordinating work, performing multiple jobs in the same area so that we do not have to go back again,” the MTA said in a statement.