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Like most agencies out there, the MTA is making cuts, and NYC Transit is eliminating around 360 jobs. According to the Post, the jobs span cleaning, maintenance, painting and management: "63 of 1,201 subway-car cleaners and 25 of 1,515 station cleaners will be gone next year, Howard Roberts, the MTA's subway and bus chief said yesterday. Between 2009 and 2010, 308 of 2,420 managerial positions at NYC Transit will be cut."
Roberts, NYC Transit president, emphasized, "I will cut somebody sitting in an office very, very quickly compared to somebody who was out cleaning stations and cleaning cars. But this is the reality of the numbers and the [financial] pressure that we're under." He also relayed a gross story about MTA board member Jeffrey Kay reporting an unseemly sight at the Rector Street R/W station: CityRoom describe it delicately, saying that Roberts "described a recent incident in which someone used an entrance to the Rector Street station... as a public bathroom" while the Daily News put it bluntly, "An MTA board member had a smelly firsthand experience of the impact of cutbacks in station cleaners...[the] member came across human feces in a downtown subway station." Roberts said, "We are in a situation where, between 4:30 a.m. and noon, we are not staffed to deal [with things like that]."
NYC Transit has already made cuts to station agents; the Straphangers Campaign's Gene Russianoff was pessimistic when speaking with the Post, "The MTA says they can do more with less. In my experience, they usually do less with less."
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If I had a dollar for every time I've seen an MTA worker either sleeping on the job or sitting around doing nothing, I'd have enough money to bail out the MTA.
There was a guy napping with his broom and dustpan this morning in the Lorimer L station - so add $1.
At least one of them bought lottery tickets.
Call these assholes out! You're paying for it wake their union ass up!
I saw one on the 4 train, take another $1
Subways might be a bit cleaner if my fellow New Yorkers learned some basic rules of civility, and if there's a trash can within sight.
Also the NYPD would be better served actually enforcing litter laws, and tossing the useless bag check table.
That is a really good point too. I've seen people throw everything from chicken bones to dirty diapers under the seats, really disgusting.
the human feces at the rector street entrance is not uncommon.
human feces at the st. nicholas/ 161st street exit of the 163rd street station on the C line used to literally be a daily occurrence. Every day, a new turd in exactly the same spot.
Human feces and urine are present every day in the 34th Street Station elevator. Unfortunately, I have to use this elevator as I am disabled.
those lazy bastards dont do shit.
Wait, you mean those guys in MTA uniforms sitting next to a mop are supposed to be CLEANING? I have lived here for four years now and I have NEVER ONCE seen one of them do anything except sit on their ass - when I see them at all, which is not that often. Seriously, has anyone ever seen them actually cleaning?
in their defense, yes, i do see MTA employees at 207th street on the A line cleaning trains in the morning.
I saw not one, not two, but three MTA employees including a cleaner standing around yakking about personal issues on a platform a few days ago. They were there at least 10 minutes before my train came.
A lot of the cleaning goes on later in the evening, so to say that you haven't seen them doing it is a little unfair
Also MTA employees are allowed to take a break now and again, just like all other employees...everywhere
they should stop doing OT for some of their older workers and they would have enough money for everything. some of these MTA guys are paid very well.
I used to live a the end of the N/W on Ditmars and I witnessed some of the lasiest sacks (not) working there. When there were no trains they just sat around and gabbed. It seemes like there was usually 4 of them just wasting away. One creative MTA worker even had a little cubby on the platform that he decorated and collected stuff on. The MTA as a whole is a huge money sucking problem.
So if I understand this correctly, the MTA is so strapped that it's cutting real, actual jobs to save money (after raising fares and cutting service), but has "negotiated with" (read: "got f*cked by") Bruce Ratner to accept even less money for the rights to build over its Vanderbilt rail yard for the heaping pile of sh*t that would be Atlantic Yards.
Seems there's plenty of sh*t in the MTA system, and it'll likely stink for a very long time.
Firstly, riders definitely need to clean up there act: bottles, cups, nutshells, Chicken bones, CLEAN UP. And eating fried chicken on the transit system should be a capital offense anyway. Then, howsabout they fire ALL the "cleaners", and make those sentenced to "Community Service" for violations on the Transit System clean? Save millions, and the violators could not do a worse job than those allegedly "employed"
to do it. And no, you can't bring your pug to work.
All workers take breaks, sometimes lengthy ones, but only union workers get paid more to be slow and suck at their jobs. Non-union hourly workers get fired when they suck. Workers that make fixed salaries and/or rely on commissions don't have this little conflict of incentives.
I generally think the trains themselves are pretty clean, especially given how much crap people spill all over the trains, disgusting food people eat, etc. At Coney Island, I've seen them thoroughly scrubbing these trains.
The stations, however, are disgusting, and when I've seen the station cleaners late at night, they barely do anything (throw some soapy water on the ground and take a break for an hour). Once I saw a bucket of water under a hose being filled for 30 minutes, overflowing, while I waited for a train at 2 am.