While the MTA’s Doomsday budget with fare hikes and service cuts for all is but a memory, one aspect of the plan — the reduction of station agents throughout the system — remains set for a Sept. 20 rollout. On that day, the MTA will begin phasing out station agents through attrition, and eventually, the system will be leaner the payroll and quite possibly meaner for straphangers fearing for their safety at half-empty stations.
As it became clear after the Albany bailout passed that the MTA would still be cutting these agents, I’ve looked skeptically at their roles in the system. In my non-verified opinion, these station agents provide the illusion of safety. They can’t stop crime and are forbidden from leaving their booths to assist passengers in need. They can provide directions, place phone calls and just sit there as a deterrent presence.
During the build-up to these staffing cuts, the MTA has pursued this line of thinking as well. Straphangers support the agents, but the MTA has claimed that agents field on average less than a handful of support requests every hour. They are, says the transit authority, largely superfluous.
Our city comptroller disagrees. William C. Thompson has written to the MTA Board a scathing indictment of the MTA’s internal report on the station agent program. While the letter, as of this writing, isn’t up yet on Thompson’s website, Heather Haddon has more:
An internal MTA study used to justify the closure of station agent booths across the subway system is “faulty” and “defective,” according to city Comptroller William Thompson.
In a letter sent to the MTA board Wednesday, Thompson blasted the agency’s reasoning in closing 105 booths manned by red-vested station agents later this month, countering many of the MTA’s arguments and the way the survey was conducted. “The report appears to have been written … with the goal of demonstrating that the (station agent) program is a failure,” he wrote…
Thompson’s office said it found that the station agents were busy, helping passengers a total of 820 times during the observation period. Workers assisted riders every three minutes at more than a third of the stations. The transit survey also said that agents did not deter crime, with felonies in the system down drastically since 2002. But Thompson argued that the report did not address misdemeanor crimes like theft or harassment, which are more common than felonies.
I’ll reserver further judgment until I have a chance to review Thompson’s charges, but if rigorous, his claims would give me pause. The MTA is going to save $16 million through 2010 as they eliminate these station agents. If Thompson’s charges hold water, the city could easily see those savings vanish through inefficiencies and an increase in subway crimes — including vandalism.
The station agents are indicative of a larger problem with running a system such as New York’s. Because the city is open for business 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, the subways must be too. Because the track mileage is vast, the system is relatively open, and controlled access points — along with people to man those points — are relatively scarce. The MTA can only cut back so many services, so many station agents, before the cuts take a collective toll on the safety, security and stability of the subway system.
As the station agents hit the chopping block in less than three weeks, the MTA will engage in a real-life experiment in subway security. Can the subways operate without the station agents? Can they operate efficiently with them? We’ll find out, but this debate is far from over.
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