In 2009 they re-made it as "The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3" with Denzel Washington in the Matthau role and Tony Scott at the helm.
I bought the DVD recently as (a) it has lots of extras (including two commentaries) and (b) I had never seen the movie and it was the second last movie Scott directed before his untimely death.
It's a very disappointing movie, I'm afraid. It scores 6.4 on IMDB and 55 on metacritic.
The saddest thing is that the parts they seems to want to change or "update" are among the parts that worked least well.
One example is that Garber is now just an "ordinary guy" rather than a transit authority cop. In one of the extras, Denzel takes the credit/blame for this idea. It doesn't work at all well for the last part of the movie.
Another is the idea that some young guy is having a video chat with his girlfriend during the hostage situation. That part is beyond bad.
It's a shame really. And the documentaries and commentaries give some idea of the amount of thought and effort that the cast and crew (and even the MTA) put into making the movie and it just hasn't translated onto the screen.
My rating: 6/10.
Here is a still of John Travolta initiating the hijacking:
