New York City Puts a Target on Subway Track Trash

Garbage-sucking vacuum trains may help you get to work quicker. 

MTA employees clean subway drains. (Credit: Metropolitan Transportation Authority)

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Rodents beware: New York’s MTA is planning a two-week “cleaning blitz” to rid subway tracks of coffee cups, pizza crusts and other detritus that can attract rats and cause track fires, reports the Wall Street Journal. Already this summer, the agency has increased track cleaning from 34 to 94 stations every two weeks. Starting Sept. 12, 500 MTA employees will be deployed to clean every track in the system. Officials say the goal is to keep trains on schedule and improve rider experience. According to the MTA, 1 percent of all weekday subway delays in May were caused by track fires, which are most often caused by stray trash.

As part of “Operation Track Sweep,” the agency also plans to purchase three more vacuum trains that suck garbage from the rails as they chug along. The MTA already deploys several vacuum trains, but a 2015 report by the comptroller’s office found that they were frequently broken down, and that even when they did operate, they can only suck up about a third of the trash, leaving vacuumed tracks virtually indistinguishable from unvacuumed ones.

This week the agency also released a video featuring animated MTA workers educating New Yorkers about the changes and reminding them to do their part in maintaining the tracks.

“At the end of the day, keeping things clean and reducing track fires is up to all of us,” says a Brooklyn-accented cartoon stick figure. “We got to either take our trash with us or use the cans.”

Paul Navarro, a union official representing subway track workers and director of subway safety for the Transport Workers Union Local 100, told the Journal he thinks the MTA’s decision to remove garbage cans from some stations has led to an increase in people discarding waste on the tracks.

“People are still going to eat, they’re going to bring their healthy little shakes,” he said. “It’s got to go somewhere. It’s too much for them to carry it around and wait till they go upstairs so they throw it on the track.” The MTA disagrees, saying through a spokesperson that the pilot program to remove cans from 39 stations actually resulted in less litter, fewer rats and lower rates of track fires.

Comptroller Scott Stringer, who criticized the MTA last year for failing to keep tracks clean, praised the new campaign. “Waiting for a subway shouldn’t be a game of ‘how many rats before the train comes?’” he said through a spokesman. “It’s good to see the MTA take real steps to improve the riding experience for all New Yorkers.”

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Jen Kinney is a freelance writer and documentary photographer. Her work has also appeared in Philadelphia Magazine, High Country News online, and the Anchorage Press. She is currently a student of radio production at the Salt Institute of Documentary Studies. See her work at jakinney.com.

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Tags: new york citysubways

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