Prisoners of the MTA
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is going from the outrageous to the ridiculous by trying to pass a rule that would ban subway riders from moving between cars. Its own staff admits, in a written recommendation, that a majority of comments it has received on the proposed ban were against such prohibition, because, its own staff says, “they felt the necessity to move between cars often arises because of uncomfortable temperatures, odors, or threatening situations.” But the staff recommends going ahead with the ban anyhow out of alleged safety concerns.
In other words, to hell with the riders. If they are stuck in subway cars with rancid or belligerent passengers, or on cars with broken air-conditioning, they’ll just have to sit there. The bureaucrats who came up with this proposal will point out that at least three riders died in 2004 while changing subway cars. But the fact is that over the years millions have changed between moving cars with no adverse effects except they got away from a mugger or some foul-smelling passenger. Or they got into a car that is less crowded or into one of the increasingly rare ones with working air-conditioning.
The fact has been proven by New Yorkers with gumption over the years that moving between cars is perfectly safe when executed with common sense. Yet the MTA Transit Committee wants a fine of $75. The full MTA board, with appointees of Governor Pataki, is expected to vote on the rule change tomorrow. If they go ahead with implementing this measure to trap their customers in sub-par cars, it’ll be of a piece with the MTA itself, a government monopoly with the service record that such monopolies tend to produce.
The MTA’s leaders are the same ones who were ready to sell the Jets a stadium site on the West Side for hundreds of millions less than it was worth. The same ones who wanted to ban photography in the subway system. The same ones who can’t make the trains run reliably in a heavy rainstorm and who have failed for years to build a Second Avenue line or an extension of the no. 7 line. The ban against panhandling on the subway is routinely violated, yet no doubt if this rule change goes forward, it will be enforced against thousands of innocent New Yorkers who are willing to take a reasonable risk with their lives to find a tolerable or safe car to ride in.
