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EDITORIAL / Don't Take Token Booth Clerks out of the Subways
No one says Lawrence Reuter has an easy job, as he tries to run one of the biggest and creakiest public transportation systems on the planet. Demands are great, progress takes eons - and even the most necessary changes set off endless waves of caviling.
But now the president of New York City Transit is about to create a mess of his own. He wants to phase out token booth clerks in the system's 468 subway stations and hand their jobs over to MetroCard machines. He says the system will replace the token-booth clerks with a corps of roving station agents.
To Reuter, the decision must seem like a simple exercise in rational management: After all, the machines can sell MetroCards far more efficiently than humans can. They won't demand fireproof booths or sick pay or expensive pensions. They will work around the clock without complaint. And while the Transport Workers Union and local advocacy groups may yell about the decision for a time, their indignation will finally fizzle out.
But if this in fact is what Reuter thinks, he does not understand the system he runs.
First of all, he may not know what it feels like to wait for a 7 train in the catacombs of the Times Square station at 2 a.m. If no cops are around, riders may feel a little more secure in the knowledge that - in case of trouble - they can always make a run for the nearest manned token booth a couple of levels up. It wouldn't be nearly so easy to find a roaming station agent in a place like that. Second of all, few veterans of the subways believe the system will actually provide station agents for long.
Manhattan City Councilwoman Kathryn Freed (D) says NYC Transit has a list of 122 booths staffed part-time that it wants to close in the near term. The council's Transportation Committee plans a hearing on the idea tomorrow. NYC Transit ultimately may win this fight. But if it does, it will sacrifice untold amounts of rider trust and good will. The plan is a false efficiency.
© Copyright 2001, Newsday Inc.
EDITORIAL / Don't Take Token-Booth Clerks out of the Subways, 07-10-2001, pp A30.
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Click to see booth closing chart and reduced hours chart.
For more information: Straphangers Campaign Testimony _____________________________________________________________________
www.straphangers.org | www.nypirg.org |
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