While this station booth at the new South Ferry terminal will open soon, the MTA may shutter others throughout the system. (Photo by Benjamin Kabak)
As the riding public gears up to protest the impending service cuts and fare hikes, the station agent elimination plan is starting to become a major community issue. The fight, however, may be relying a bit more on psychology and less on reality.
Last week in The Brooklyn Paper, Sarah Portlock and Zeke Faux examine the reaction to the plan in Brooklyn. They write:
Buried deep in the Metropolitan Transit Authority’s proposed budget cuts are suggestions to close part-time and several full-time service booths — a move that could save the $10.8-billion agency thousands of dollars, but could also compromise safety of its passengers by depriving riders of another set of eyes and ears late at night.
“I don’t like [the idea] at all — I get very uncomfortable if no one’s at the post late at night,” said Park Slope resident Jerry Robinson, who was waiting at the Union Street M- and R-train station, whose full-time southbound booth would be closed entirely. “There’s not enough cops on the subway already, so for the MTA to take away the people in the booths in unacceptable.”
The cash-strapped transit agency has said it has a $1.4-billion budget gap and has proposed eliminating 205 booths — 33 of which are in Brooklyn — from 144 stations citywide. “[These proposed cuts are] part of the service reductions in the [MTA] budget,” said agency spokesman Kevin Ortiz, noting that the measures will be enacted in the spring barring a fiscal or political miracle.“These are measures that we hope not to implement,” he added.
In The Brooklyn Paper story, the angle is clear. Cutting these positions will seriously impact passenger safety. “It would make me feel unsafe,” Alex Pappas said to Portlock and Faux. “I can’t afford to not ride the trains — but I might invest in a can of Mace.”
While the reporters grant that every station will have at least one station agent, they may, for example, be in the northbound side of Union St. on the 4th Ave. line with no connection across the tracks. The real question, though, is whether or not this elimination would actually impact passenger safety.
In a way, the answer is yes. By placing employees in the stations, the MTA can create the illusion of authority. Perhaps a would-be mugger would be deterred by the presence of a station agent. Perhaps a sexual assault could be averted before it starts.
But in another way, the answer is no. MTA employees generally do not step out of the booth to assist passengers in need because they can’t. They’re unarmed and unprepared to face would-be criminals. It’s not, in other words, part of the job. The riders in Portluck and Faux’s article may not know that or they may choose to feel safer by the presence of someone in a uniform.
This plan will mostly impact MTA employees, and those folks are already protesting. Psychology aside though, beyond the deterrence argument, riders won’t actually be safer with or without station agents.
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