(The Center Square) — Taxpayers will no longer foot the bill for mandatory staffing minimums on subway trains in New York City.
Gov. Kathy Hochul rebuffed a union push to require subway trains to operate with at least two workers, saying it would siphon away taxpayer money for much-needed upgrades to the public transit system.
Hochul vetoed a bill Friday that would require the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to make permanent a half-century-old law requiring two operators — a conductor and an engineer — on most subway trains.
“This bill would cost as much as $10 million annually, reducing service, and limiting the MTA’s ability to benefit from capital investments in modern rolling stock and signals,” Hochul, a Democrat, said in a statement.
To be sure, the MTA’s contract with the Transit Workers Union already requires two-person crews on subway cars. But the proposal, approved by the Democratic-controlled Legislature in June, would have required another worker on the trains that currently only have one operator.
Unions representing transit workers criticized Hochul’s veto, saying that keeping two operators on a subway train is a safety and liability issue.
In a statement, John V. Chiarello, president of TWU Local 100, said while the union is “disappointed” by Hochul’s rejection of the bill its contract “prohibits the further unilateral expansion of the practice on the subway system” and said unionized workers “will continue to operate the trains as we have been, and how it is safest — with both a train operator and conductor aboard.”
But watchdog groups that had urged Hochul to veto the bill, praised her decision to reject the proposal. The groups, which included the nonpartisan Citizens Budget Commission and Reinvent Albany, said one person crews are the “global norm” used by most subway authorities across the world.
“We strongly support efforts to provide New Yorkers with world-class public transit,” the groups said in a statement “This bill would have done the opposite by raising MTA operating costs and constraining the MTA’s ability to implement modern operating methods, adopt new technologies, and provide better service for riders.”
A recent report by New York University’s Marron Institute of Urban Management found less than 6% of the world’s largest 270 transit lines use two or more train operators. Of the 94% that use one or fewer operators, many are completely automated and the trend globally is towards automation as modern signal systems are installed, the report’s authors said.
“This bill, as written, does nothing to improve MTA service and will stymie the authority’s efforts to become a world leader in transit operations,” the report’s authors wrote.
