Second Ave. Sagas

Line manager rollout completed this week

Written by

Benjamin Kabak

in

Over the last few years, we’ve tracked the progress of the line manager program from an idea to a pilot program on the L and 7 lines to a system-wide level of management. This week, according to amNew York’s Heather Haddon, the line manager program will officially be in place throughout the system.

While some transit advocates see this is a move that should benefit New York City Transit’s customer service and customer interaction, I’m still on the fence. In the end, according to Haddon, the program will include 36 manager — and that means 36 managerial salaries. Transit, however, says this program will actually save money. Haddon explains:

The 36 managers act as the CEOs of their lines, coordinating all departments, from platform cleaning to track maintenance. Six of the general managers oversee more than one line.

Officials must analyze train performance and respond to customer complaints, according to the job description. The managers take training before starting, and are to ride trains and visit stations along their lines.

Transit estimated it would save $7 million by cutting managerial jobs. The program is the first major managerial reorganization of the subways in more than 50 years.

Since this program debuted in 2007, Transit and MTA watchdogs have engaged in a back-and-forth over its effectiveness. Transit has noted that lines with the line managers have been cleaner and saw a bump in performance during the second round of the Rider Report Cards. As Haddon notes, though, the 7 and L were also the recipients of more cleaners. With service cut backs on tap, the rest of the system will not enjoy that benefit.

In April, when the Permanent Citizen’s Advisory Committee to the MTA evaluated Transit in 2008, they reserved judgment on the line managers. Said the report, “It has imparted a sense of ownership to managers and helped quantify what it takes to provide a reliable level of service and well-maintained stations. However, it is still not clear how success is going to be measured.”

Even with a full roll-out, it’s hard to say more about the managers. Already, straphangers can e-mail their line managers if they have complaints or criticisms. Beyond that, though, we’ll have to see how performance improves. There is, after all, only so much one manager can do in the face of an underfunded and under-resourced subway system.

Comments

13 responses to “Line manager rollout completed this week”

  1. Scott E

    Only time will tell if if will be effective or not — the plan has its share of proponents and opponents. However, likening them to CEO’s is hugely inaccurate. CEO’s of companies generally only answer to shareholders and perhaps a board of trustees; beyond that, they have freedom to set prices, service, and volume in a way to maximize profitablility. Line managers, on the other hand, are stuck with the rolling stock handed to them, the capital budget allocated for them, the schedules forced upon them, and fares which they can’t control.

    They are managers, yes. (Scapegoats, maybe). But CEO’s? Definitely not.

    Reply
  2. Working Class

    Yet another public lie by the TA. They like to say that this program will save money yet in reality is adding heavy payroll. Not only did they add group g.m.’s, g.m.’s, and deputy g.m.’s but they still have all of the line superintendents and deputy superintendents. Since this program has started 2 years ago on the L and 7 not one single manager has lost there job or been sent back to there former hourly title. For the few that they deemed not necessary the TA simple made up new higher paying positions for them.

    The fact is that this program has not and most likely will not do anything more than cost millions being that all of these g.m.’s make 150k+ a year. For the people that actually work the lines that have used the program they say it has been a complete failure because you have way to many layers of management to get anything done along with alot of these new g.m.’s have zero experience in either subway operations or RTO.

    When this was first talked about years ago the plan was to eliminate the superintendents because the g.m.’s making alot more money will be taking there places but they TA has decided to keep both because the more management and less actually workers the better in there mind.

    Reply
  3. tacony palmyra

    What’s considered a “line”? The 7 and the L are the two trains that just run back and forth on their own tracks. How do the managers work for areas where trains share the same track for portions? Are there conflicts?

    Reply
    1. Scott E

      In this context, I a line represents a single lettered or numbered route. So there will be three managers responsible for the express stations on the Broadway line (1, 2, 3). According to the article, there are a few cases where managers have more than one route — for instance, I don’t think there is a separate manager of the Z, since it runs very infrequently and always overlaps the J.

      Reply
    2. Working Class

      Each number or letter line gets there own g.m. and deputy g.m. along with at least 3 superintendents. Though the J,M,Z go together as one and the 3 shuttles get grouped with other lines as well.

      The lines are also split into groups IRT east, IRT west, north, south, queens in the B divison these groups also have group general managers. Ontop of all of these managers and supintendents there are now 5 maintenance general managers. The TA for the last 15 years has been extremely overly top heavy and this program takes it to a whole new ridiculous level.

      Remember also that these G.M’s ontop of there 150k a year salaries get tons of other benefits like superior health and dental care that the employees could only dream of getting and they get company cars.

      Reply
      1. rhywun

        “At the MTA, the 2.8 percent of the workforce that earns more than $100,000 a year—a rough proxy for white-collar workers—consumes just 5.8 percent of the payroll. So the MTA isn’t that top-heavy, compared with, say, the New York City workforce, where the 7 percent of workers earning $100,000 or more a year consume 22 percent of the payroll.”
        http://www.city-journal.org/20…..ansit.html

        That doesn’t sound very top-heavy to me–compared even to the average private corporation.

        Reply
        1. Working Class

          It’s just a matter of opinion I guess. To me this is very excessive for each line:

          1 General Manager
          1 Deputy G.M.
          1 Line Superintendent
          3 Deputy Superintendents

          And a group general manager on top of that. This is just for each subway line. The minimum salary for any of these jobs is for deputy superintendent $101k/ year.

          Reply
        2. Alon Levy

          The MTA isn’t top-heavy by the standards of a finance-dominated city, sure. But it is top-heavy by the standards of a well-run transit agency.

          Reply
  4. John

    It sounds like a decent way of organizing management, but it would be interesting to see the full management hierarchy now, to see just how many “managers” each line may have, either directly or indirectly.

    Reply
  5. Josh Karpoff

    Has anyone seen an actual organizational chart for the TA with all of these managers. I know that in my agency, we have a whole tiered chart that shows which manager reports to whom and such. Most bureaucracies have these, so I suspect that the TA probably has one as well.

    I am a visual person, so I’d like to see how these roles all overlap. For TA folks, I would think that after dealing with it for a while, it’s easier to understand (even if it doesn’t make sense).

    Reply
  6. Scott E

    Working Class – I’m not sure I agree with the salaries you mention (a blog post awhile back linked to a site which publicized all MTA employees’ salaries – perhaps someone can look up one of the line managers), or the organizational structure you claim they will have. As John alluded to, a before-and-after org-chart comparison would be nice.

    However, if you could hire an employee for $200k/year, and that employee could save you $1 million/year by streamlining procedures and reducing waste and inefficiencies, wouldn’t you hire him? You’d be $800k richer for having done so. My example uses fictitious numbers, but demonstrates that highly compensated employees aren’t necessarily wasteful.

    Reply
    1. Working Class

      I got the salaries by looking them up the salary of the general manager of the L and 7 lines. It is public information and since they were on those jobs those in 2008 the salaries are listed.

      I agree with saving money by streamling but NOT by adding 2-3 more layers of managers in an agency that already has way to many. The TA has managers that manage nobody, managers that manage 1-3 people only and managers that do desk work that a DC 37 secretary should be doing for 2/3 less the pay.

      As for the organazational chart yes there is one but it is on an employees only site and doesn’t include any of the superintendents only the managers and above.

      Reply
      1. Benjamin Kabak

        I’ll see if I can get a copy of the organizational chart from either Transit’s communications department or via a FOIL request if need be. It might take a few weeks.

        Reply

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