Rats beyond the 'pail'
MTA to toss more subway trash buckets
Garbage cans will be hauled out of eight more subway stations on Sunday as part of a sixmonth experiment to see if the stations actually stay cleaner — and less ratty — when riders are forced to carry their trash outside.
Two stations have had no cans since last fall as part of the pilot program: 8th Street on the N/R lines in Manhattan, and the Main Street 7line terminal in Flushing, Queens.
Both stations have become a lot cleaner as a result, MTA officials said.
Litter is down by 50 percent at 8th Street and by 67 percent at Main Street, officials said.
“We need to expand the experi ment . . . to see if we have the same results,” said MTA chief Joseph Lhota.
So the agency plans to remove bins from two stations each in The Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn and Manhattan.
If it works, every trash can in the system could be scrapped.
“They did it in London, citywide, and the PATH system,” Lhota said. “They saw a reduction in garbage.”
PATH stations have been without trash bins for more than a decade.
Every year, strap-hangers toss 14,000 tons of trash in subwaystation trash bins, the MTA says.
And it’s a problem. Overflowing cans cause track fires that delay trains, and trash with food residue attracts rats.
Scores of workers are needed to empty the bins, and the trash often accumulates in subway storage rooms — attracting even more rats — before it can be hauled away.
Also, police have feared that someone could stash explosives in a trash can, and the MTA’s efforts to find a bombproof bin have been a dud.
In 2004, the agency bought hundreds of supposedly bombdeflecting trash bins that sold for up to $3,000 apiece, only to learn they were defective.
Despite the problems, transit advocates are not sure removing trash bins is a good idea. What’s a straphanger to do with a sloppy, justused icecream wrapper?
“Are you going to stick it in your purse or your knapsack?” asked Gene Russianoff of the Straphangers Campaign, which says garbage has drawn rats to 11 per cent of the city’s subway stations.
But riders at Main Street agreed with the MTA, saying the station has been cleaner since trash bins were removed.
“If it’s been working here, it’s probably a pretty good indication that it will work in other stations,” said Judy Nam, 28, who lives near the station.
“I like the idea,” said Flushing resident Luis Cordoba, 42. “There’s always going to be those people who litter and don’t care, but I think most people will have enough respect not to do that.”
But Jackson Heights resident Jessica Milton, 39, was dubious.
“I don’t really see how it makes sense to remove garbage cans and expect there to be less trash,” she said.