Five Ways To Fix NYC's Subways Right Now

You don’t need to dig into Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Twitter mentions to know that the situation regarding New York City’s subway system is beyond dire. Daily commutes have become productivity-sucking slogs. Cuomo, who controls the MTA, appears more fixated on easing the commutes of Long Island drivers than actually fixing the subways that move 5.7 million New Yorkers every day, while the agency itself seems to not be all that sympathetic to commuters’ immediate concerns. Fixes proposed by the governor have been half-measures at best and do nothing to return the system to a state where it isn’t constantly buckling under the weight of its ridership.

But New Yorkers have begun familiarizing themselves with the acute causes of their misery — decrepit signals, cramped stations, a massive decrease in funding — and deserve an equally precise plan to address them. Governor Cuomo has announced a grant competition to generate ideas, but transit experts the Voice spoke to all agree the answers to the MTA’s problems are so obvious, it wouldn’t take some sort of “genius” to figure them out. Here are five concrete steps the MTA, the governor, and yes, Mayor Bill de Blasio can take right now to fix the subways.

1. End The MTA’s “Bunker Mentality”

Last week, when commuters were stuck on an overheated F train for almost an hour, the conductor announced that they were being held because of “train traffic ahead.” But riders knew immediately from the train’s loss of power that the train itself had become disabled. This incident is indicative of how the MTA treats its riders; both its leadership and employees operate as if riders can’t deal with the reality of what’s going on with the system. And when the riders complain, the MTA exhibits a bunker mentality, acting as if the agency itself is under siege from its riders.

Divestment in subway infrastructure has led to an overreliance on a decrepit signal system that has outlived its usefulness, but the MTA doesn’t want you to know the full extent of the problems. When repair projects fall behind schedule, or when trains have to be taken out of service for long periods of time, the MTA keeps it under wraps, as if the public won’t be able to handle the truth.

Read more: https://www.villagevoice.com/2017/06/16/five-ways-to-fix-nycs-subways-right-now/