Good morning Speaker Vallone, Chairman Dear and members of the Transportation Committee. I’m Larry Reuter, President of New York City Transit.

While I appreciate this opportunity to appear before the Committee to discuss changes New York City Transit will be making in the hours of operation of some lightly used subway station booths, in reality, we are not doing anything new or different. In fact, we have been changing booth hours throughout the system for years.

Let me begin by emphasizing an important point that seems to be overlooked by some who have expressed their views about our plan: the changes we are making in no way mean that we are phasing out station booths in the subway system. Rather, as we have done for at least a decade, we are proposing staff changes to some secondary booths with low entry and exit volumes, where we can reduce staffing without reducing access to the subway system. Indeed, at a number of the locations we will actually be increasing access. That is to say, many entrances that are currently only open part-time will be open around the clock with the installation of MetroCard Vending Machines and MetroCard-activated High Entry/Exit Turnstiles. (Indeed, what is different with the changes we are making today is that our MetroCard equipment allows us the opportunity to increase access.) Moreover, and this is critical, at every station in which these part-time booths are located, there will continue to be at least one full-time booth, operating 24-hours a day, 7-days a week.

In continuing our efforts for economies and efficiencies, we are proposing staffing changes based upon very simple criteria. We looked to booths that have a very low volume of entering and exiting customers and which are located in stations where at least one full-time booth will remain. We also required that the appropriate complement on High Entrance/Exit Turnstiles, MetroCard Vending Machines and other necessary equipment be in place so that our customers will continue to have access to the system.

Why make these changes? They continue implementing the plan outlined in our 2001 budget, which the MTA Board approved last year. They are also part of the ongoing economies we have been realizing since the rollout of Automated Fare Collection. We are constantly evaluating and revising the hours of operation of station booths on a case-by-case basis as a part of an ongoing effort to modernize the way we do business. Even before the advent of AFC, we switched hours, closed booths, and reduced staffing to reflect changing demand, improvements in technology and standard business practices.

As expected, the success of MetroCard and the advent of MetroCard Vending Machines and the new High Entry/Exit Turnstiles have offered many opportunities to make our station booth operations more efficient and cost-effective. With 85% of our subway customers using MetroCards in place of tokens and more and more of those customers using MVM’s to purchase their MetroCards, the demand for buying fare media at station booths has declined despite growing ridership. In response, we have already generated some savings by closing the second window positions in station booths and revising various relief schedules.

Press attention has focused on concerns about security, which we believe are misplaced. In fact, the continual reduction in crime allows us to feel confident that we can make these changes without endangering the security of our customers. We exist in a much securer environment since the beginning of the decline in crime that followed the peak crime years of the late 1980s. This decline continues: from 1995 through May 2001, there has been an 85% drop in major felonies in the subways. We routinely cooperate with the Transit Police Division of the NYPD, which is responsible for security in our system, to ensure that this trend continues. When we make changes to the station environment, we routinely submit our plans to the Transit Police for their information and security review. Thus, the staffing changes which prompted this hearing were reviewed by the NYPD. They found no objections to our plan.

I also think that it is instructive to cite the experience of the Chicago transit system, which has totally eliminated Token booths from their system. Resistance was at first quite forceful, but now their customers have fully embraced a system where station agents are available for face-to-face customer relations. Moreover, while clerks no longer staff token booths in Chicago, crime in the system has decreased.

The station booth staffing reductions scheduled for August include 53 part-time booths where the necessary MetroCard HEETs, MVMs and other equipment are currently in place. Of the 53, we are closing 35 and reducing the hours of operation at 18. Of those 35 to be closed, most are currently open only 4 hours a day or less (24 of 35, or about 70%) and, of these, nearly all are open only during the morning rush hours. Of the 18 that will see their hours of operation reduced, nearly all the changes will involve closing them on weekends and holidays. In all, these changes will affect 21 locations in Manhattan, 19 in Brooklyn, 11 in Queens and 2 in the Bronx.

To sum up: the planned changes in station staffing are part of the MTA Board approved 2001 budget and build on the success of Automated Fare Collection and MetroCard technology. But more fundamentally, the changes reflect business as usual and, in particular, our ongoing evaluation of station booth operations. MTA New York City Transit’s end goal is not to unstaff stations. Our long-term strategic plan has been to take advantage of the efficiencies of automated fare equipment and the opportunities created by MetroCard’s success to achieve limited savings through personnel redeployment, while simultaneously providing increased customer service and station access without compromising the security of our customers or employees.

Click to see booth closing chart and reduced hours chart.

For more information: Straphangers Campaign Testimony

Newsday Editorial on Token Booth Closings

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