Federal regulators ordered the MTA to improve its safety protocol in the subway system on Wednesday, referencing a significant spike in the number of incidents where transit employees and riders were nearly hit by trains last year.
The officials “determined that a combination of unsafe conditions and practices exists such that there is a substantial risk of death or personal injury,” Federal Transit Administration Executive Director Matthew Welbes wrote in a set of directives issued by the organization. The notices were sent to New York state’s Public Transportation Safety Board, which is responsible for monitoring the MTA’s safety standards, and also working with the agency to oversee its safety training and protocols for near-miss incidents.
According to the directives, there were 38 “near-miss” events where MTA workers were close to being struck by moving subway trains in 2023, a 65% increase from 2021. The notices also state that there were 228 close calls that “could have resulted in a customer injury or property damage” last year, up 46% from two years prior.
“The federal directives make it clear that MTA boss Janno Lieber and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul are asleep at the wheel as the agencies they control are doing nothing to address safety concerns for workers and the traveling public,” TWU International President John Samuelsen wrote in a statement to THE CITY. “Instead, the bosses resort to blaming workers when safety issues arise rather than addressing their poor management of the system.”
MTA officials disputed the FTA’s findings and said they planned on filing an appeal, arguing the recorded incidents where workers were nearly struck by trains last year were insignificant in comparison to the number of instances where their workers were able to make it home safely.
“We will be interested to learn if FTA has established a standard in excess of this 99.97% safety record,” NYC Transit’s interim President Demetrius Crichlow wrote in a letter to the FTA. He said that any instance of a close call with a moving train is “thoroughly investigated to determine cause, so we can implement new or strengthen existing mitigations to prevent future incidents.”
This set of notices from the FTA comes as the National Transportation Safety Board continues to probe the death of an MTA track worker who was fatally struck by a subway train last November, in addition to a train derailment on the Upper West Side in January. More recently, another track worker was critically injured after being hit by a train in June, the FTA directives read.
