TA Takes Safety Impersonally

New York Daily News, Editorial
Sunday, February 2nd, 2003

Those Transit Authority bureaucrats who decided that closing 177 token booths all over the city and replacing them with MetroCard machines was such a great idea should speak to Fran Freedman.

She is the director of government affairs at Lighthouse International, whose mission it is "to help people who are blind or partially sighted to lead independent and productive lives."

"Lighthouse International remains totally opposed to the TA's plan," Freedman said. "This is a question of accessibility, which is critical for our consumers. And this plan denies accessibility to the partially sighted and the blind."
She tells a very convincing story of a woman who found herself separated from her dog.

"It was a terrifying experience for her," Freedman said.

The woman was trying to go through one of the high MetroCard turnstiles - known as HEETs (high entrance and exit turnstiles) - that the TA has installed.

"You can use a low turnstile with a cane or a dog," Freedman said. "But not the high ones. They are narrow, and the people behind you push the turnstile."

Besides, visually impaired people need human beings to provide them with directions and advise them of subway changes.

"You and I are fortunate to be able to read the signs," Freedman said. "But a blind or partially sighted person cannot. They must depend upon staff."

Straphangers with disabilities are the ones who will pay the highest price if token booths and clerks disappear, but they are not the only ones.

Certainly, the riding public does not share the TA's enthusiasm for replacing clerks with MetroCard machines.

Subway riders are concerned about their safety, and most support the Transport Workers Union when it says that "We [the riding public] need the eyes, ears and human presence of our token booth agents."

It is not that token booth clerks - with some honorable exceptions - are such a lovable bunch. We all know that.

But they have a unique advantage over cold, mechanical vending machines.
"They are human beings," said Izadeli Montalvo. "And as such, they can spot criminal activity, pick up the phone and call 911." And that is reassuring.

Saved by a clerk

The Puerto Rican-born Montalvo, a reporter for the Spanish newspaper El Diario-La Prensa, was talking from experience.

More than a year ago, she was assaulted by a crazed thug who put a knife to her stomach at the Bowery stop of the J train.

"The token booth clerk called the police," said Montalvo, who was seven months pregnant at the time. The thug fled.

For all their metallic efficiency, vending machines would have been useless to the mother-to-be in that situation.

To make things worse, as The News reported on January 21, 16 of the subway stations on the TA hit list are on the NYPD's roster of underground crime hot spots.

And even if subway crime is at its lowest level in decades, some believe that the TA's plan, especially at stations targeted by police, is an invitation to more crime.

Public hearings about closing the booths and raising fares have been scheduled for next month.

"Station agents assigned to those booths are a lifeline for passengers in distress," Darlyne Lawson, stations vice president for the union's Local 100, told The News. "And their presence is an important deterrent to crime. Shuttering these booths is an invitation to disaster."

Just ask Izadeli Montalvo.

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