MTA Absurdity

Time Warner problems struck just as I was settling in to write this evening’s post. Barring a miraculous resurrection of my Internet within the next hour, I won’t have new content up until the morning. In the meantime, Gawker has a video of a racist naked guy on the 6 train. Only in New York, folks. Only in New York.

When news surfaced yesterday that MTA crews had loaded up a passenger train with garbage bags, I figured heads would roll, and already, the authority is doling out the discipline. According to the Daily News, the worker responsible for supervising the work gang that collects trash from the tracks at 59th St. on the East Side will be disciplined. “We can’t state strongly enough that refuse is absolutely not to be stored or transported on passenger trains,” the agency said in a statement.

Per the News, the MTA determined that workers had collected the refuse from the tracks near the 59th St. station. Instead of carrying it above ground as they should have, the supervisor ordered trash loaded onto the next passenger train in order to take it to 42nd St. where a work train would pick it up. “This was not done with the knowledge or acquiescence of any senior manager,” MTA spokesman Charles Seaton said. “This is a complete no-no.”

Labor officials, meanwhile, hinted that this practice may be more widespread than anyone would prefer. “I have seen supervisors order cleaners to place garbage bags on passenger trains for transportation to a storage facility,” Marvin Holland, a TWU Local 100 member, said. “It’s a health and safety issue for passengers, and our members will not do it unless specifically ordered by supervision.”

It’s become abundantly clear over the past few months that the MTA has a garbage problem. As budget cuts have led to fewer station cleaners, trash piles up in the subway, and along with the refuse come rats. Operationally, workers remove trash via the garbage train, but even this morning at 10 a.m., I saw MTA employees dragging bags of trash through the 7th Ave. station along the Brighton Line in Brooklyn. The leaking bags smelled terrible, and it was just a flat-out mess.

I found it fitting then when I spotted this story in the Daily News. According to a transit worker, some MTA crews have been using passenger trains to move garbage through the system. This action is, of course, against the rules, and no one is happy about it. Passengers are disgusted when trash bags start leaking, and the MTA spoke out against this practice. “It is not our practice to use in-service trains for trash removal,” the authority said.

So what’s going on here? TWU President John Samuelsen has an idea. Despite MTA denials, he claims workers are being instructed by supervisors to do so. “To bring those bags on passenger trains and expose riders to potential of rats jumping out of the bags is outrageous,” he said to the News. “When track workers walk past those bags, we give them a wide berth, knowing if you walk close to a bag, a rat could jump out right on top of you.” Heads should roll.

While the MTA’s general garbage-collection practices and straphangers’ general sloppiness may contribute to the overall griminess of the subways, the NYPD’s enforcement efforts, or lack thereof, are clearly to blame as well. As Pete Donohue reported today, cops in the subway doled out just 1812 summonses to those riders who either littered or relieved themselves in subway stations. (The Code of Conduct violation is the same for either offense.) Considering how five million folks trek through the subways everyday, that number is laughably small.

With rats on the rise and track fires a common concern, the MTA Board is seeking for ways to limit underground detritus, and earlier this week, a few Transit Committee members floated a proposal to ban food in the subway entirely. They can ban whatever they want, but the need for enforcement remains. It’s illegal to litter in the subways, but because the cops hardly ever enforce the rule, few people are deterred from their piggish behavior. Maybe the buck stops with lax enforcement after all.

Just in case you had no idea that the subways smell bad, Fox 5 would like to highlight that for you. In a story that explores some rather gruesome subject matter, the Fox news team explores the Herald Square station and finds it to both smell and look like a toilet on more ways than one.

The MTA says the human excrement has since been removed, but apparently the odor is lingering due to the station’s homeless population. This, mind you, is at one of the busiest hubs in the city. I don’t want to draw too many conclusions here, but stories like this one highlight why New Yorkers have such a love-hate relationship with transit.

It’s time once again for everyone’s favorite activity: scandal round-up time! First up, signals. The Daily News reports today that the MTA is going to fire a “subway manager and several workers” who were caught faking signal inspection reports. These employees are the first to confront sanctions and dismissal for their roles in this ongoing scandal. Those fired are among the employees who were caught with photocopies of signal barcodes last month.

Transit officials defended the firings while TWU President John Samuelsen claimed the rank-and-file workers were being scapegoated for management failures. Management, he said, is “trying to deflect attention to workers and away from senior management who caused the whole problem to begin with.” Criminal investigations are ongoing.

In other news that should have happened months ago, the MTA Board voted this morning to cancel its contract with SAIC, the contractor currently embroiled in the CityTime scandal. The board had approved a $118 million deal last month for a new FCC-mandated radio system, but after pressure from the comptroller’s office, management said it was “no longer comfortable” with the deal. The contract will be reopened for bids, but time is of the essence. The MTA will face a $1-million-per-day fine if its radio network is not modernized soon.