Does the city need someone to staff these ubiquitous booths?
When the MTA Board met yesterday to approve a reduced fare hike, the authority’s governing body also discussed, albeit briefly, the service cuts that made up part of the Doomsday budget. While the so-called cuts to the public — the elimination of subway lines, the planned reduction in off-peak, weekend and overnight service — are off the table, I was surprised to learn that the MTA still plans to axe hundreds of station agent jobs throughout the system.
As I reported in January, the plans to cut the station booths were a stealth move by the MTA. The agency stopped filling vacancies last month and is hoping to phase out around 800 station agents and shutter around 42 booths. While every station will still have an open, manned booth with a token clerk in it, the red vest program will end, and some one-way stations — an uptown platform with no crossover to a downtown train, for example — will have no employees at all.
During yesterday’s fare hike hearing, union leaders and station workers were apoplectic over these cuts. Andreeva Pinder, TWU Local 100’s VP for stations, defended the station agents. “I’ve meant the different between living and dying,” she said.
Pinder discussed how she and other station agents have helped people in need who come in off the streets, how they can aid confused passengers and how they contribute to the overall safety of the stations. She was pretty outraged by the cuts. “What in the hell are you thinking about?” she asked the MTA Board as she finished her remarks.
Kendra Hill, another station agent and TWU Local 100 member, defended the station agents as well. “A MetroCard vending machine cannot help a parent with a stroller. A turnstile cannot give directions to lost travelers,” she said.
Initially, my reaction to Hill one of cynicism. It’s true that a turnstile can’t give directions, but in my experiences, neither can many station agents. While Pinder tells a story about her helping people, the news covers the tales when station agents do nothing in the face of danger.
What if, though, those stories make headlines because they are far more compelling than the alternate? Who wants to read a feel-good piece in The Post that says “Station agent helps lost straphanger find her way”? Dale Hemmerdinger, the chairman of the MTA Board, put it best yesterday. “Unfortunately, it’s human nature to remember only when something doesn’t work, and in that regard, we’re a very easy target,” he said.
So maybe the station agents do help out, but maybe, as I’ve written in the past, they serve a deterrent purpose. Simply by putting someone in the station, the MTA can deter fare-jumpers and would-be criminals. Simply by alerting riders to the presence of someone with a uniform, the MTA is creating second thoughts.
Of course, this doesn’t seem to stop would-be taggers and graffiti artists. It doesn’t stop people from littering or relieving themselves in subway stations. It may stop major crimes, but quality-of-life violations continue unabated.
When the MTA cuts the station agents, they plan to keep open the turnstiles at unstaffed stations. Fare-jumping could become rampant, and the cuts — some $52 million annually — will be eroded by petty crime. Soon enough, we’ll find out if it’s worth it. I’m not so sure it is.
12 comments
Ben,
I think this may be a negotiating tactic on the part of the MTA. Although the union and the MTA are in binding arbitration right now on their new 3-year contract, there may be other work rule/compensation changes apart from the contract that the MTA may want. Reforming this station agent role as well as the booth system may get the MTA some additional dollar savings that they need to close the $200 mm gap mentioned yesterday. I don’t expect we will see a resolution to this until the arbitrator comes out with his/her decision. At that point, the MTA will know the total gap to be closed, and will decide what needs to be done with these layoffs.
Nice that for once they have some cards to play, instead of being told what to do by outside actors.
I’d be all for keeping the station agents, if they weren’t holed up behind bulletproof glass, unwilling to accept any lost objects to be turned in.
As for people relieving themselves, that is not a token booth matter. That is a public toilet issue. The problem is, We hardly have any public toilets below ground or above. And some members of the public just gotta go.
Yeah, I remember the disco era situation in the subway toilets: Some muggings, more drug use, and a lot of Sen. Larry Craig type of stuff.
The “best practices” solution is to do what they do in the rest of the world: Use attendants to control the spaces. But I guess nobody wants to pay a union wage to the types of folk who would work as toilet attendants.
Ben, thanks for bringing up this topic again.
Someone needs to look at the bigger picture here.
I would argue that there is no longer a real need for “token clerk” at most stations, 24 hours a day. Instead the booths should remain open, as information booths, at only the largest stations.
But, at the same time, there needs to be an increased and more visible police presence on the system, so that riders feel safe – even at stations where there is an unattended booth. This to me mean more police on the trains as well as in the stations.
Sure, the headcount for police comes from a different source that the headcount for token booth clerks — but even so, that doesn’t change the need here, which is for greater security without the need for having a staffed token booth all night long.
I lived in Germany for a couple of years, and of course almost everything about how the subway system works in Germany vs. New York City is different — but I think it’s still useful to look at how similar, but different, systems operate.
As example —
In Frankfurt am Main:
– There are no staffed ticket offices in the subway system, except at the main junction stations in the city.
– All tickets are sold in vending machines and the system works on an honor system (i.e. there are no barriers, like a turnstile, at the entrance to each station.)
– Tickets are spot-checked by undercover employees of transit system, and the fine for ridding without a valid ticket is 40 Euros (about $55).
– In the evening and at night (the system is closed between about 1 AM and 5 AM) there is a uniformed security person on every train, and very often you will see security patrols in the stations.
Up in Hamburg, until I think about 2002, it used to be that there was a person at many of the stations who’s only job it was to control the doors of any train in the station. i.e. a train would arrive and someone would step out of a booth, on the platform, and push a button that would open/close the doors of the train in the station. This position was finally eliminated, even though there were many arguments that it would be unsafe, and the doors are now operated by the driver of the train.
So yes, the conditions in New York City are very different, for sure.
Ben
Bloomberg already refuses to have the city pay it’s fair share towards the transit system so it’s safe to say that he would never be in favor of a larger police presence on the subways. To do this would mean hiring more cops OR doing what has been recommended many times of using ALOT more civilian employees so that the actual cops can be out on the street instead of behind a desk.
another Ben,
There’s no reason we couldn’t adapt those procedures in New York, other than lack of will. The honor system would work here–we’re nothing special. There needs to be a lot more cops in the system. In 10 years I’ve seen a cop on a train maybe a dozen times, and slightly more often than that in the stations themselves (not counting those useless bag checks)… 10 years.
Ah, good old lack of will. I completely agree with you there, Rhywun. I think it’s become painfully obvious over the last few months that many of our desired transit improvements suffer from lack of will. We’re stuck with a second- or third-rate system because no one has the will or imagination to push for more.
Rhywun: I’m not sure about the honor system. Sociologists seem to think that Scandinavia, Switzerland, and Germany are inherently higher-trust systems than the US, and so accommodate honor systems better.
Maybe, but if it saves money, I say do it. Of course, the union might have something to say about it.
The SelectBus uses the honor system, doesn’t it? It’s not quite a subway, but it’s the same concept. You swipe your Metrocard curbside, and get a receipt which you need to present – if someone asks. It’s just like validating a ticket on the U-Bahn (Subway) in Germany; or – much closer to home- the Light Rail in New Jersey.
Proof of payment doesn’t equal an honor system. In Switzerland, there’s an honor system – you’re supposed to buy a ticket, but nobody really checks. That’s different from proof of payment like in the US, where if you’re caught without a ticket you pay a steep fine. The subway already has a partial proof of payment system, in that you can sometime enter through the emergency doors, and run a small risk of being caught and paying a fine.
[…] pesky station agents. Last week, in voting down the Doomsday fare hike, the MTA Board noted that station agent cuts remain on the table. As it always does, the topic engendered much discussion about the impact — real vs. perceived […]