(The following article by Joshua Robin was posted on the Newsday website on December 14.)
NEW YORK — Weighing track workers’ safety against minimizing delays, the MTA has yet to determine how fast automated trains are to run when they begin service next year.
At issue is whether slower train speeds, which help prevent collisions with workers but trigger delays and sap revenues, should be enforced when certain types of workers are on the tracks, according to interviews with transit officials and employees as well as an internal report on the disagreement obtained by Newsday.
The automated system, called Communication-Based Train Control, will begin on a section of the L in the first quarter of next year between Broadway Junction in East New York and Rockaway Parkway in Canarsie. New York will join several other cities — such as Washington, San Francisco and London — with automated transit systems. The AirTrain serving Kennedy Airport is also computer-run.
Plans now call for the automated L trains to run at the slower speeds only while large, stationary clusters of crews are on the tracks.
Maintaining those low speeds while workers roam larger areas raises more problems, the report states. Pinpointing those workers’ exact locations is often difficult, and would require limiting speeds over a long stretch of track.
According to a consultant cited in the report, the scenario would drain at least 1 percent of revenue running time. “Systemwide, this translates to 20,000 additional revenue train hours or $2.8 million in increased costs,” the report states.
The limited speed would “provide an additional layer of safety,” it continues, “but at the expense of increased running time, operating costs and poorer-on-time performance.”
Leaders in Rapid Transit Operations — supervisors charged with running the subways — argue for allowing the higher speeds. They say roaming workers could be protected by simply switching off automatic train operations when the crews are on the track. That would alert train operators who take over from the computer that personnel are on the track, but it would not require them to observe the lower speeds at all times.
Opposing them are leaders from Maintenance of Way, who are charged with maintaining the tracks, and NYC Transit’s Office of System Safety, who view a 10 mph speed limit as essential. Trains average about 45 mph.
Track inspectors, who are not part of the MTA leadership, also are bitterly opposed to any talk of allowing normal speeds — and are seen as highly suspicious of the automated system entirely. Working in small packs, even with flags and lights, sometimes fails to attract conductors’ attention before its too late, they say.
“Every track worker or track inspector can tell you so many stories about how many times they almost got hit,” said Pat Lynch, a track inspector for 22 years. The debate takes on renewed urgency as a track maintenance worker, Harold Dozier, 54, of Canarsie, who was fixing a third rail in Brooklyn yesterday, was struck and killed by a non-automated B train. The maintenance worker is the 21st subway employee to be killed while working on the tracks over the past 20 years, according to Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union.
Charles Seaton, a spokesman for NYC Transit, declined to comment on specifics of the report. He said that the debate outlined in it is “part of the process that will create an extremely safe running railroad.”
The issues outlined in the report have yet to be resolved, Seaton added.