Currently, New York City’s 422 subway stations are staffed by 3000 station agents. These folks are supposed to serve as the eyes and ears of the MTA. They sit in their booths to help passengers in need, assist those who can’t negotiate the turnstiles and, ideally, guard against crime. In a few months, their numbers will drop by 450, and although every station will still be staffed, people will be inconvenienced.
For the MTA, the elimination of station agents should allow them more flexibility. Many of the station agents provide help that can be centralized. For example, if a person in a wheelchair or with a stroller needs to use the emergency exit, that person could readily call an MTA employee at a centralized location who could, with the use of closed-circuit camera technology, verify the need for help and press a button to activate the emergency door. This employee could oversee multiple stations at once, and the agency wouldn’t need to staff the stations with as many people. The same can be down for people who need directions as well.
In fact, the MTA has already been promoting their Customer Assistance Intercoms as solutions for those straphangers who encounter an agent-less station. Bright red signs direct customers to the intercoms, and on the other end should be another station agent who can offer assistance. The problem, reports amNew York’s Heather Haddon is that these intercoms are hard to find and don’t always work.
The subway intercoms that straphangers must increasingly rely on for help have left many riders stumped about how to use them — if they can find them at all. “I’ve never noticed it,” said Queens rider Maryanne Bannon, 58. “Most New Yorkers are not trained for this.”
…In a small survey of straphangers by amNewYork, no one was familiar with the rather cryptic-looking boxes. “They have to come up with a better design. It’s not consumer friendly,” said Karl Kronebusch, 54, a Park Slope rider.
Even MTA CEO Jay Walder recently admitted that he had a hard time finding the intercom in a station he frequents, saying he was “disappointed” by the obscure system. “We’ve almost hidden them away,” Walder said last week.
The boxes also periodically break, with an entire bank of them out recently, union officials said. Furthermore, many stations where the station agents are being removed don’t have the safety devices installed yet, said MTA board member Andrew Albert. “Before we remove booth agents, we should have a method of contacting the police,” Albert said.
Albert’s quote speaks for itself. The MTA has chosen to replace people with a centralized system, but they’ve done so in an obtuse way. Transit needs to install easy-to-see intercom boxes in convenient places, and the agency must ensure that someone is always on the other end. Many college campuses have a blue light phone system, and the MTA should use that visible approach as inspiration.
As more station agents are eliminated, riders may encounter more problems with their commutes. As station agents seemingly field only a handful of requests a shift, it may seem that not many will be inconvenienced, but a few people per day will quickly add up.
3 comments
Antenna Design (who designed the R142-R160 subway cars) also designed a new intercom system for the MTA. Not sure what happened to it. http://www.antennadesign.com/ant.html
I could buy-in if those intercoms did actually work and were responded to, like the old one at Park Street/Winter Street in Boston pre-Charlie Card (mark this as the only time in my life I’ll say something positive about the MBTA’s wheelchair accessibility). My few experiences in using them (Penn Station overnight, 63rd/Lex overnight) has been poor; when the Autogate failed at NYP I actually had to leave the station and walk because the intercom was apparently a decorative accessory. Walking up 8th Avenue after midnight alone in a wheelchair in the rain = not fun. (this was before Times Square was accessible, otherwise I could’ve gone to Herald Square and taken the Broadway BMT.)
Ben, I disagree with the premise that these station agents should be retained, unless they are full-service booth operators.
I am basing my opinion on an admittedly small sample size of one booth, the eastbound Vernon-Jackson 7 train exit. The station agent has a permanent cover over the transaction window and cannot conduct commerce.
Since the tracks are between the platforms customers must exit the station, cross the intersection and use the westbound clerk for human transactions. The eastbound station agent is frequently out of the booth (on the street, in the bar?) or otherwise consumed with self-important tasks such as reading or napping, none of which are beneficial to the riding public.
Although I pass through this exit each afternoon I have never seen the station agent assisting any passenger in any way. There is no elevator for the disabled.
While station agents at other stations may be of marginally greater value it is clear that these are just make-work positions perpetuated by the TWU. If it was up to me these useless seat-warmers would all be made into full-service booth operators, re-purposed within the MTA, or released.