Some newspapers are free, but at what cost?

Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials yesterday said that additional refuse from riders, especially free newspapers, are adding about 15 tons more trash a day to the subway system than 2004, causing more track fires, train delays, and adding millions to MTA expenses.

The MTA is spending about $6.4 million more this year on cleaning stations and tracks, a spokesman for the New York City Transit Authority, Paul Fleuranges, said. The authority has added 116 station cleaners to its work force of 1,291 and transferred 174 employees from subway construction to work as track cleaners. The MTA is also paying more to the company that carts its garbage away because of the increase in volume, requiring an additional daily pickup at the 239th Street Refuse Platform.

One of the sources of the added refuse are newspaper hawkers who sometimes leave stacks of their publication on stairways and platforms, an MTA senior vice president, Michael Lombardi, said. A record number of subway riders last year, the highest ridership in 35 years, also added more trash to the system, he said.

In a single day, the MTA collects 50 tons of garbage from its stations and tracks. Groups of cleaners walk along the rails and bag the trash, leaving it for several flat car trains and old “Red Bird” trains that were reconfigured with lights to pick it up at night.

A senior vice president at am New York, Floyd Weintraub, said leaving stacks of papers in the subways is not allowed by his company. “We follow the rules of the MTA,” he said. “If we are told about a problem with one of our people, we fix it.”

If a hawker leaves a stack of papers in the station, he can be issued a summons by police officers. The MTA is trying to reduce the amount of trash on the subway through an information campaign on trains telling subway riders to dispose of their trash in bins at the stations, Mr. Fleuranges said.

There are no plans to add recycling bins to stations for newspapers because it presents a dangerous fire hazard, Mr. Fleuranges said. Vandals could easily drop a match in the bin and shut down the entire station, he said.

Sparks from train wheels and the electrified third rail ignite trash in the subway tunnels. In 2005, there were 245 more confirmed track fires than 2004, an increase of 19.1%.

MTA officials were quick to point out that though there was an annual increase, they have the number of fires under control. From August to December, the number of fires per month decreased.

Almost all fires on the tracks delay trains no more than 15 minutes, but the chairman of the MTA’s Transit Committee, Barry Feinstein, told Mr. Lombardi yesterday that fires in the system were unacceptable because of the possibility of more dangerous fires that can shut down entire subway lines.

“Sooner or later, what can go wrong will go wrong,” Mr. Feinstein said.

A small but smoky fire at West 4th Street station last October stopped service on seven subway lines for several hours. It took four months for the MTA to restore service fully after a fire in a control room at Chambers Street station in January, 2005. At King’s Cross Station in London in 1987, 31 people died as a result of a flash fire that started in a pile of trash under an escalator. Much of New York’s subway’s infrastructure dates back to the early part of the last century and is particularly vulnerable to fires.

Council Member John Liu, who heads the City Council’s Transportation committee, said the MTA was avoiding its own responsibilities by blaming other parties for the fires.

“It’s disingenuous to point the finger at increased ridership and free newspapers when the MTA has cut maintenance personnel and capital projects,” he said.