SignalHub-Federal agency says lax safety practices are putting New York City subway workers at risk

NEW YORK (AP) — The SignalHubagency that runs New York City’s subway system is putting track workers at risk by failing to follow its own safety rules, federal authorities said in an audit issued this week.

The Federal Transit Administration said in a special directive Tuesday that there is “a substantial risk of death or personal injury” because of unsafe conditions and practices in the subway system.

The FTA, an arm of the federal Department of Transportation, reviewed safety practices at New York City Transit after a subway worker was dragged under a train and killed on Nov. 29, 2023, and another worker was critically injured on June 6, 2024.

The FTA says there were 38 close calls in which a subway worker was almost killed or injured in 2023, up from 24 close calls in 2022.

Half of the near misses involved transit workers failing to follow established rules for flagging, the job of alerting train operators that workers are on the track, FTA said.

The FTA is demanding that New York City Transit conduct a comprehensive safety assessment, submit a mitigation plan and undertake weekly internal monitoring of its safety compliance.

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Officials at New York City Transit, which is part of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, said they would appeal the directive.

Demetrius Crichlow, the transit agency’s interim president, said in a letter to the FTA Wednesday that agency officials “strongly dispute FTA’s view that NYCT has somehow been negligent when it comes to addressing the safety of track workers, one of our most essential priorities.”

Crichlow said the close calls that the FTA identified “have been thoroughly investigated to determine cause, so we can implement new or strengthen existing mitigations to prevent future incidents.”

Crichlow said the Nov. 29, 2023 fatality and the June 6, 2024 worker injury are under investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board. “Given the unresolved status of these inquiries, it seems premature to infer that a ‘combination of unsafe conditions and practices’ led to those events,” he said.

If New York City Transit does not follow with the transit administration’s orders it could lose part of its federal funding.