Brooklyn Council Member Lincoln Restler launches an initiative to help residents get involved in the state of their subway stations.
The High Street subway station in Brooklyn Heights has very few trash receptacles and garbage littering the platform. The escalator is constantly broken and extremely long and narrow, so don’t count on being able to pass slow-moving tourists to catch a train.
“This station needs a facelift,” said Shayna M. in a one-star Yelp review.
These are some of the issues that the new “Friends of MTA Station” initiative will address. City Council Member Lincoln Restler (D-Brooklyn) is launching “Friends of MTA Station,” a new project where groups of volunteers will help improve and maintain the quality of subway stations, Restler announced on Feb. 24.
The initiative will start with five of the district’s busiest stations: High Street-Brooklyn Bridge, Borough Hall, Jay Street-Metrotech, the Bedford Avenue L station and the Nassau Avenue G station. Each station will have a group of 15-20 volunteers who complete walk-throughs of the stations, note issues and complaints, and meet with Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) officials to learn about the agency’s plans.
“Our subways — the lifeblood of New York City — will benefit tremendously from deeper engagement with neighborhood riders,” Restler told Brooklyn Paper. “I am beginning this initiative at a time where I know the MTA needs all the support it can get, and I believe these new groups will be part of that solution.”
Last month, there were more than 44 million entries into the subway – a mere 34.13% of what there were in February 2020, according to NYC Subway Ridership.
About two in five riders reported using the subway less frequently now than they did prior to March 2020, but only 15% said that this was due to Covid-19 concerns, according to the Fall 2022 MTA Customers Count Survey. In fact, 44% cited personal security and 22% cited service quality.
The subway has the lowest approval rating of the city’s modes of public transportation (54%), according to the survey. Of those surveyed, 56% of riders put “service reliability” as an important factor in their satisfaction, 50% put “cleanliness of station” and 49% put “personal security in stations.”
“[The subway] belongs to millions of people who use it every day,” Danny Pearlstein, director of policy and communications at Riders Alliance, told Brooklyn Paper. “Organized groups of riders, whether it’s at stations or across the entire network, are exactly who should be holding the powers that be accountable for the quality of service and the infrastructure that carries it.”
While “Friends of the MTA Station” can help by pointing out cleanliness issues, such as full garbage cans, bad smells and dirty platforms, issues regarding elevators and construction require funding.
On Feb. 22, Transport Workers Union of America (TWU) held a rally where they urged Gov. Kathy Hochul to designate more of the state budget towards the MTA, and Restler said he plans to help those efforts.
The Brooklyn Council member said that he hopes the groups will “[support] greater funding for the MTA’s capital and maintenance budgets at the city, state and federal levels to improve conditions while maintaining fare levels,” according to Brooklyn Paper.
And, while the majority of responses toward the initiative on social media have been positive, some have expressed frustration.
“I appreciate the sentiment here, but I also wish city services would function adequately without unpaid labor by average New Yorkers,” Mollie (@you_found_mollie) commented on Restler’s Instagram post announcing the initiative.
However, Restler said that they “have received many applications and are now training [their] volunteers.”
“I hope that my neighbors having the chance to meet with MTA staff, to meet with station agents, to learn about the constraints that they’re facing…can make a difference,” Restler told News 12. “[And that] we can also advocate for greater resources to go to the MTA.”
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