New York City Puts a Target on Subway Track Trash

[B46 via Utica]

Rodents beware: New York’s MTA is planning a two-week “cleaning blitz” to rid subway tracks of coffee cups, pizza crusts and other detritus that can attract rats and cause track fires, reports the Wall Street Journal. Already this summer, the agency has increased track cleaning from 34 to 94 stations every two weeks. Starting Sept. 12, 500 MTA employees will be deployed to clean every track in the system. Officials say the goal is to keep trains on schedule and improve rider experience. According to the MTA, 1 percent of all weekday subway delays in May were caused by track fires, which are most often caused by stray trash.

 

As part of “Operation Track Sweep,” the agency also plans to purchase three more vacuum trains that suck garbage from the rails as they chug along. The MTA already deploys several vacuum trains, but a 2015 report by the comptroller’s office found that they were frequently broken down, and that even when they did operate, they can only suck up about a third of the trash, leaving vacuumed tracks virtually indistinguishable from unvacuumed ones.

 

This week the agency also released a video featuring animated MTA workers educating New Yorkers about the changes and reminding them to do their part in maintaining the tracks.

 

 

 

“At the end of the day, keeping things clean and reducing track fires is up to all of us,” says a Brooklyn-accented cartoon stick figure. “We got to either take our trash with us or use the cans.”

 

Paul Navarro, a union official representing subway track workers and director of subway safety for the Transport Workers Union Local 100, told the Journal he thinks the MTA’s decision to remove garbage cans from some stations has led to an increase in people discarding waste on the tracks.

 

“People are still going to eat, they’re going to bring their healthy little shakes,” he said. “It’s got to go somewhere. It’s too much for them to carry it around and wait till they go upstairs so they throw it on the track.” The MTA disagrees, saying through a spokesperson that the pilot program to remove cans from 39 stations actually resulted in less litter, fewer rats and lower rates of track fires.

 

Comptroller Scott Stringer, who criticized the MTA last year for failing to keep tracks clean, praised the new campaign. “Waiting for a subway shouldn’t be a game of ‘how many rats before the train comes?’” he said through a spokesman. “It’s good to see the MTA take real steps to improve the riding experience for all New Yorkers.

 

 

Link: https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/mta-nyc-subway-trash-cleaning-initiative

 

With the crazy amount of new topics being created nowadays I thought you guys might be interested. Just going to leave this here.

[Via Garibaldi 8]

Cleaning the tracks but not the platforms apparently... Took the subway this morning briefly at 81st and Central Park West... The platform was pretty dirty with water leaking everywhere... If they're cleaning the tracks, how about doing a blitz of the platforms too?  I suppose they don't think that rats run on the platforms but they do.  Seen plenty of them at Fulton Street at the beginning of the platform before they did the full renovation...

[Fresh Pond]

Several vacuum trains? Lol we only have 2 and they keep catching on fire.

 

Hopefully the new 3 won't meet the same fate.

[CenSin]

Several vacuum trains? Lol we only have 2 and they keep catching on fire.

 

Hopefully the new 3 won't meet the same fate.

It couldn’t be as bad as this:

[TheNewYorkElevated]

It seems the NYC subway is still suffering from the legacy of deferred maintenance. Look at other systems in the U.S. I don't see trash on the San Francisco BART, the Boston MBTA, or even the DC WMATA for that matter, and yet our system experiences a ton of trash. 

[TeeLow]

It seems the NYC subway is still suffering from the legacy of deferred maintenance. Look at other systems in the U.S. I don't see trash on the San Francisco BART, the Boston MBTA, or even the DC WMATA for that matter, and yet our system experiences a ton of trash. 

It's really simple math: Smaller systems have less equipment and mileage to maintain, thus less expenditure. Larger systems have more and need more.

 

I remember well the TA's 1980s conditions. Track fires on multiple lines simultaneously were the norm; graffiti on nearly every subway car, dirty plats, peeling paint in stations, water dripping like Niagra Falls, train cars swaying from side to side like a Coney Island amusement ride (not only swaying; IRT cars jiggled from sided to side like a Times Sq prostitute)...on and on I could go. Ahh the good ol' days

 

Today's 'deferred maintenance' is like a backup in the Tunnel of Love compared to the way it used to be.

[bobtehpanda]

It seems the NYC subway is still suffering from the legacy of deferred maintenance. Look at other systems in the U.S. I don't see trash on the San Francisco BART, the Boston MBTA, or even the DC WMATA for that matter, and yet our system experiences a ton of trash. 

 

DC's metro is under federal oversight because they haven't figured out how to maintain a subway, and a person actually died because of it...

 

Say what you want about New York, but at least our system doesn't kill people due to how badly it's maintained.