Ever looking out for the public’s bottom line, New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli has issued another report on the state of the MTA’s finances. This one reveals that the transportation authority has doled out over $1.2 billion for personal claims and property damage over the last 12 years.
The Times’ William Neuman broke the story on City Room on Thursday:
The report said that over all, the two commuter railroads and New York City Transit received a total of 86,875 claims of all types from 1996 to 2007. Since 1996, 85 cases have been settled for $1 million or more, at a total cost of $233 million, or a fifth of all claims paid.
Over the period covered by the study, claims have generally amounted to less than $100 million a year. Last year they reached $144 million because of the settlement of some unusually large claims. The authority’s annual operating budget is more than $10 billion.
The report — available here as a PDF — isn’t so much as critical of the MTA as it is just laying out the facts. Where the report is most critical is in the infamous LIRR armrest issue. The arm rest settlements have exceeded $285,000. That’s a lot of torn pants.
Most of the other claims and the big-ticket items in particular were focused around safety issues. People filed claims for falling into that LIRR platform gap, for getting struck by trains and for worker-related issues. For their part, the MTA in response focused on improving safety standards underground. Said Jeremy Soffin:
Protecting the safety and security of our employees and customers is the MTA’s top priority. The MTA has made great strides in improving safety over the past ten years, and we continue to pursue new initiatives. Since 1996, the employee injury rate has been reduced by 60% and in 2007 the MTA achieved its lowest employee injury rate ever. Customer injuries have also decreased. Since 1996 the number of customer injuries per million customers has decreased by 28% even while the MTA ridership is at record numbers. As a result, the MTA’s ultimate incurred cost for employee and customer accidents is less than what would have been expected, a savings of approximately $335 million from 1997-2007. In addition, two of the causes identified by the Comptroller of higher recent claims — gap incidents and torn clothing due to armrests on the commuter railroads — have both been addressed.
In the end, it’s hard to be overly critical of the MTA for this expenditure. Considering that billions of people ride the subways each year, the injury rate and the amount paid out per year are relatively slow. It would be better to see the MTA’s paying out zero dollars a year, but in our litigious society, that’s just a pipe dream.