What do you do with poll results from a self-selected group of New Yorkers who opt to receive e-mails from the Straphangers Campaign? These poll results aren’t really indicative of the pulse of New York. They simply show what the more transit-aware are thinking, and even that’s up for debate.
The question has risen to the forefront in the Great Station Agent Debate of 2009. (More here, here and here.) The Straphangers Campaign has released results of a poll asking its members the following question: “Station Customer Agents (SCA) are the maroon vested employees of the MTA that provide customer assistance to the public, services like: providing travel information to riders, assisting riders with fare purchases at MetroCard vending machines, as well as contacting the proper authorities in the case of an emergency. Do you feel safer traveling on the subway with a station agent present?”
Of course, the answer was yes and not by a small margin. Per the press release from Straphangers attorney Gene Russianoff, 63 percent of the 627 members who voted said yes while 16 percent said no and 21 percent didn’t care. The group used these results to protest the cuts. “Riders want a human presence at the entrances to the subways,” Russianoff said.
There are a few things going on here that warrant a closer look. First, the MTA is not eliminating full-time staffing in its entirety from any station. At some locations — a planned 36 stations — the only person working will be in a booth that is across the street from one of the entrances, but every station will have at least one full-time employee. Furthermore, emergency contact points will be in place at every platform, according to The Post. The illusion of safety may lessen, but actual safety should not suffer.
Second, the Straphangers are seemingly protesting the loss of the red-vested station agents. These are people who work in high-traffic stations during high-traffic times. I see one of these workers at the 47th St. side of the Rockefeller Center station every day, and when he retires — the MTA is cutting jobs through attrition, not dismissals — I won’t even notice that he is gone. Late-night concerns are mostly unfounded. (N.B.: That’s a high-traffic, tourist-heavy station that won’t actually lose it’s agent, but you get the point.)
In the end, these cuts will save the MTA $16 million annually. As the budget plan enacted by Albany requires the MTA to shave $200 million off of its own books, the station agents will go. I’d rather see an illusion of safety disappear than train frequency and maintenance plans rolled back. Wouldn’t you?
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