MTA rips into ‘unacceptable’ train de Lay
Transit officials are investigating why a packed subway train was delayed by a news conference Mayor de Blasio held in a station, MTA Chairman Joe Lhota said Thursday.
Lhota called the apparent special treatment “unacceptable,” saying, “No one should stop a train for a single individual to get on. It’s a people’s system — it’s not one over another,” he told reporters after a speech by Gov. Cuomo in Manhattan. “Causing a delay is what I want to avoid in every possible way.”
Lhota also noted that “we know when a train comes into a station. We know how long it needs to stay.”
Mayoral press secretary Eric Phillips publicly denied Wednesday that the train was held inside Manhattan’s City Hall/Broadway Station Tuesday evening.
But an MTA official told The Post Thursday the agency had confirmed “the train was held at the station for a police check.”
And police spokesman J. Peter Donald admitted Thursday that “NYPD personnel held the doors of the train for a short period of time, probably 30 to 45 seconds, to allow all the passengers and several members of the media to safely enter the train, from the overcrowded platform.”
The train sat in the station for three minutes and 20 seconds, according to sources with knowledge of the dispatch system.
De Blasio following an event in Brooklyn ignored a reporter’s question about Lhota’s probe, but spokeswoman Jessica Ramos tweeted “#FakeNews” at two journalists who reported on the train delay.
The incident occurred when a Brooklyn-bound R train pulled into the station as de Blasio was wrapping up his press event, leading Phillips to announce: “That’s our train. Thank you, guys.” Hizzoner and his aide then hopped on board, en route to a reelection campaign event in Prospect Park, Brooklyn. Inside the subway car, The Post overheard a member of the mayor’s NYPD security detail ask a uniformed cop: “Did you hold the train?”
When the cop answered, “Yes,” the mayoral bodyguard replied, “You’re not supposed to do that.”
The cop then briefly left the car, which pulled out of the station following his return. A rider who heckled the mayor to “Fix the trains!” during a news conference also rode in the same car and vented over what had just happened. “I think this is a f--king joke. They’ll hold the train for the mayor but not anybody else,” fumed Lanie Durnin of Bay Ridge.