NEW YORK CITY, NY — 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.

News outlets are 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? Will this 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.

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 lines, the 4, 5, 6 lines or the 7 and various shuttles? Yes, we know shuttles aren’t numbers, but this is what happens when you ask journalists to do the math.

Next week, we’ll put 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.