Every day, I ride the B from 7th Ave. in Brooklyn into Manhattan. Generally, I need the back of the train, and for the last few days, I’ve walked past a rotting apple core perched atop a utility box at the back of the station. The nearest garbage can is the equivalent of a city block and a half away, and the tail end of the station often fills up with discarded water bottles, coffee cups and candy wrappers. It is your typical New York City subway platform.
As veteran subway riders know, New York’s system is not known for its cleanliness. In DC, cops ticket those who eat on the Metro, and the London Tubes shut down each night so that workers can give the system a thorough scrubbing. Here, though, a dearth of garbage cans, 105 years of grime and too few cleaning crews have left the system a mess. If new Transit president Thomas Prendergast can have his way, the subways may look a little cleaner soon. At a forum last week, Prendergast spoke about his desires to clean up the subway system. He wants to consolidate cleaning oversight and improve upon the reach of the MTA’s station overhaul campaign.
Of course, cleanliness starts with the riders. If people continue to discard their trash on the platforms and not in garbage cans, the stations will never be that clean. Maybe we need some DC-style, heavy-handed anti-littering programs. It would, after all, make the trains nice for all of us.
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