New York subway workers are at risk, the federal agency warns

The agency that runs New York’s subway system is putting rail workers at risk by flouting its own safety rules, federal authorities said in an audit released this week.

The Federal Transit Administration said in a special directive Tuesday that there is “a substantial risk of death or personal injury” due to unsafe conditions and practices in the subway system.

The FTA, an arm of the federal Department of Transportation, reviewed safety practices at New York City Transit after a subway worker was dragged under a train and killed on November 29, 2023, and another worker was seriously injured on 6 June 2024.

The FTA says there were 38 close calls where a subway worker was nearly killed or injured in 2023, compared to 24 close calls in 2022.

Half of the accidents involved transit workers who failed to follow rules set for signaling, the task of alerting train operators that workers are on the line, the FTA said.

FTA requires New York City Transit to conduct a comprehensive safety assessment, submit a mitigation plan, and conduct weekly internal monitoring of its safety compliance.

Officials at New York City Transit, which is part of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, said they would appeal the directive.

Demetrius Crichlow, the transit agency’s interim president, said in a letter to FTA on Wednesday that agency officials “strongly dispute FTA’s view that NYCT has been somehow negligent when it comes to addressing rail worker safety, a of our most essential priorities”.

Crichlow said the close calls identified by the FTA “were thoroughly investigated to determine the cause so that we can implement new or strengthen existing mitigation measures to prevent future incidents.”

Crichlow said the Nov. 29, 2023 death and the June 6, 2024 worker injury are being investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board. “Given the unresolved state of these investigations, it seems premature to infer that a ‘combination of unsafe conditions and practices’ led to these events,” he said.

If New York City Transit doesn’t follow the transit administration’s orders, it could lose some of its federal funding.

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