Crews control
MTA shifts office workers to help at stations
WHEN MAJOR delays hit the subways, MTA office workers will hit the platforms.
Metropolitan Transportation Authority brass are deploying office staff from their cubicles to stations during big subway disruptions and emergencies, the Daily News has learned.
The MTA in December launched a program where office staff, managers and transit superintendents can volunteer to don an orange vest and get flustered riders to their destinations when chaos strikes.
“By banding together and joining forces, we can all take part in the Subway Action Plan to restore our reliability and reputation as the best transit organization in the world. But we need your help!” an internal MTA staff message on the program, obtained by The News, said.
The MTA’s Incident Customer Assistance Program is part of its efforts to show riders a kinder, more helpful transit staff that started with a newly created position for booth workers called Wayfinders.
Union reps see the program as the transit agency saving money on the backs of workers — a notion the MTA denies.
So far, 180 transit officials, including analysts, department execs and other nonunion workers, have volunteered.
The MTA has sent volunteers out nine times since Dec. 11, when a wannabe suicide bomber detonated a pipe bomb strapped to his chest at the 42nd St.-Port Authority subway station, according to the agency.
Twenty-one volunteers were deployed to help riders this month when a cable fire sent hazy white smoke through the Nos. 4 and 5 line tunnel near Brooklyn.
Some riders said the office workers are miscast.
“They should use them to fix the subways and get the buses to run on time,” griped Mike Hayes, 41, who was riding the D train home to Harlem. “They’re trying to be friendly, but they should really try and get the job done.”
Rider Rick Aviles, however, said the MTA is at least trying to assist riders, with a fare hike looming next year.
“I understand they’re trying to be helpful,” he said.
Supporters of the program inside the MTA see benefits.
“Most of us need some field experience anyway,” one participant told The News. “It helps the passengers and also gives us a better idea of what the real world is like.”
One transit manager was concerned subway operations could be hampered.
“Now, they got to be out there directing customers instead of actually running their departments,” the official said.
MTA spokesman Shams Tarek said the program helps riders when they need it most.
“Managing from the front lines during a major service disruption or emergency is essential,” Tarek said. “This field work helps employees better understand the system and the public they’re hired to serve.”
John Mooney, a station agent rep at Transport Workers Union Local 100, said the work is a job for station agents only.
“It looks like management is trying to do some sneaky moves and quietly bring in office workers, managers, analysts… to come in whenever they need extra workers,” Mooney said.
The volunteer program was launched when the MTA had difficulty recruiting station agents to be Wayfinders, who have the same responsibilities.
The MTA has had to scale back its Wayfinder program to 120 spots from the 355 positions it had wanted to fill. The last round of bids for Wayfinder posts had 29 spots left empty, mostly at W. 42nd St.-Port Authority.
Station agents who are undergoing training will fill in those remaining spots, according to Tarek.