Friday, June 25, 2021

MTA abolishes station agents

 

NY Daily News

Cash is no longer king at the subway’s token booths.

Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials said Wednesday that booth workers — who once handled thousands of cash and fare transactions each day — will no longer accept riders’ cash or swap their damaged MetroCards.

Hand-to-hand transactions were banned at the booths in March 2020 as transit honchos feared they put workers at risk of catching COVID-19. Now officials say that shift will be made permanent.

“We currently do not plan to resume cash transactions in the booths,” MTA chief safety officer Pat Warren said during a news conference.

Warren said OMNY — the MTA’s tap-and-pay fare system that will fully replace MetroCards by the end of 2023 — means the authority will no longer need workers in booths to assist riders with cash transactions.

Straphangers can still use cash to pay for MetroCards at automated vending machines in subway stations. The vending machines will eventually be replaced with OMNY machines that also take cash.

Token booth workers will also no longer swap out MetroCards that are damaged or expired. MTA officials said riders with damaged MetroCards will have to mail them in or go to the agency’s customer service center in lower Manhattan to get replacements.

Transport Workers Union Local 100 president Tony Utano — who represents a majority of the MTA’s workforce — feared the move away from cash was a step towards cutting the booth worker positions entirely.

“Not having cash transactions at subway booths is an inconvenience, and an insult, to subway riders,” said Utano. “Station agents alert the police on behalf of crime victims, summon ambulances for injured and sick riders [and] report suspicious, menacing and dangerous behavior.”

 Impunity City

The MTA is making a huge mistake.

Actually, a really fucking huge mistake, but in all honesty what else can they do? It was only over a year ago the MTA announced that they needed over 50 billion dollars to fix the subway and then the COVID-19 pandemic happened which inevitably led to devastating financial losses from low ridership. And now the transit system is broke.

24 comments:

Anonymous said...

50 billion dollars to fix the subway ?
50 billion 200 Billion It doesn't matter, no skills exist to fix it.

Anonymous said...

Unions: Enemies of progress

Anonymous said...

I wonder what the new woke socialists who just won their primaries will say about this. They will probably say a lot, but do something? Probably not

Anonymous said...

Vending machines can be programmed to speak EVERY language on earth. This is what NYC wants. Many of the lefty candidates ran because they wanted "language equity", so the machines can do this. It does mean more unskilled jobs will be wiped out, but technology has a tendency to do that. I don't see this as a bad idea--I don't see the need to pay someone poverty wages to babysit a subway station that's a shithole anyway.

Anonymous said...

Has anyone heard any candidates for office even mention this recently? No. They were all too busy trying to be more woke than each other.

Anonymous said...

Remember all those Democrats ... eh immigrants ... they are importing with so many special needs that will keep Democrats ... eh city employees ... occupied with good high paying jobs.

Besides, if someone acts up odds are strong it will be a Democrat ... special needs person who needs services ... rendered by other Democrats ... er social workers ... unless a Trump supporter shows up with an assault weapon and we can be assured they are not out there to menace you.

Gotta build the party somehow and going home at night with no adult is in the train station to be on the lookout is fine as it all has cameras watching every platform.

Anonymous said...

Unions are socialist anti American institutions. They give too much power to workers. This prevents the job creators from realizing their true potential. Job creators who have to pay union wages could easily have spent that extra money on a second, third or fourth home, a yacht, a bigger car, a trip to outer space, hookers etc.
Reagan was right to destroy unions. Thanks to him we have great industrial leaders like Bezos, Musk, Trump, Shkreli, and Diamon.

Anonymous said...

No Token agents ! Who will herd the Sheeple ?

Anonymous said...

Unions are socialist anti American institutions. They give too much power to workers. This prevents the job creators from realizing their true potential. Job creators who have to pay union wages could easily have spent that extra money on a second, third or fourth home, a yacht, a bigger car, a trip to outer space, hookers etc.
Reagan was right to destroy unions. Thanks to him we have great industrial leaders like Bezos, Musk, Trump, Shkreli, and Diamon.

Anonymous said...

"Unions are socialist anti American institutions"
The UFT being the worst followed by the Marxist PSC !

Anonymous said...

Who do you notify in case of an emergency?

Emergencies like when someone is pushed onto the subway tracks?

When fights break out in the subway stations and some people are stabbed or shot?

When you are being threatened and followed by homeless derelicts or by people who want to rob you?

There are often track fires down in the subways. Many people usually notify the subway clerks to let them know what is going on and to contact the fire department.

Many women and young girls are sexually assaulted in the trains and in subway stations everyday. Where can they go for immediate help if there are no subway clerks in the booths to be notified so they can contact the police and let them review video of the suspects?

If the subway station agents are removed, who can you immediately go to when you "see something, say something".

NYC has always been short changed when it came for funding the MTA.

But you won't hear a peep about this from Cuomo, Deblasio, Schumer, are other elected officials and city council members.

Their too busy posing for pictures, attending public events, and marching in parades.

Way to take care of the people and the transportation system they depend on to go to work, and pay the enormous high taxes you expect us to pay without any consideration of the financial hardships many New Yorkers are going through.

Get out and move far away from this Sh*tty city while you can.

Anonymous said...

Sheeple use cards. Maaaaster Cards.

Anonymous said...

Job loss to AI needs to be taken seriously but not by the DEmORaTs !
America is the only military in the world which refuses to protect its own border... 700,000 illegal immigrants in 6 months... What could go wrong?

Anonymous said...

You losers only wish you were in the UFT. SET FOR LIFE BABY!!!!!

Anonymous said...

Bad move for so many reasons...the subways just got more unsafe.

Anonymous said...

"UFT. SET FOR LIFE BABY!" Not a good thing to be proud about.
Hey Schmuck they are pushing their own ideology and views points on kids who don't even know what race is. Why do you think this is allowed ?
In a Loudon County School meeting parents where arrested for demanding their children be judged for the content of their character not the color of their Skin ! The claim that "nobody is teaching CRT" is the same as "nobody is coming for your guns", they're both flat out lies designed to dissuade gullible people who never bother to question anything.

Anonymous said...

Remember when schools taught kids how to read, how to write,how to do arithmetic and how to think rather than what to think, so they stood a chance at becoming productive members of society instead of confused shitheels who blame everyone else for their failures? Pepperidge Farm remembers.

Anonymous said...

I saw this coming when the metro card appeared.
Used to be you would line up to buy tokens at the token booth. There would be 3 or 4 attendants inside the booth. The minute the customer line got even a tad long another attendant would appear and that line would be whittled down to zero in short time.
When the metro cards came out you still could buy & use tokens. But the lines at the token booths were very long & only one attendant.
Pretty soon the metro card vending machines appeared and token booths had no employees.
After that the token booths were ripped out of the stations.
Sad to say but too many MTA token booth attendants, bus drivers are no longer the working class hero role models of my youth. They are hostile lazy sacks of crap bused in from the lands of mystery meat. Sad to say they don’t deserve to be here in Queens county or the rest of the USA.
I am not crying for them as the token booth attendant career path goes the way of the chimney sweep.
They are so rude & get angry if you ask them any question.

Anonymous said...

Politicians: Enemy of the People.

NYC Politicians are for Billionaires, Greedy Real Estate Developers, Greedy Corporations, Bail Reform for Violent Repetitive Criminals, Sex Offenders, and Thugs.

High Taxes for Property Owners and taking away the Rights and Safety of Law-abiding citizens.

Citizens of NYC should sue and get rid of the politicians who have already destroyed this city.

Anonymous said...

PART One:

To the intolerant extremist Anonymous who said that, ❝Unions are socialist, anti-American institutions.❞ Well, sir, so is your social security retirement fund, and the SSI office just called——they want it back (in its entirety)!

In all likelihood, you were not old enough to remember the days when Mike Quill, the feisty head of the Transport Workers Union of America, who led a twelve-day strike of all bus and subway workers in New York City, in January of 1966. Quill notoriously told a federal judge to 'Drop Dead,' in defense of his union workforce, and went to jail instead of bartering his soul for private splendor (shortly after he suffered a fatal heart attack, and died for his membership).

Yes, unions today are sycophantic, symptomatic illusions of failed, modern day progress, as well as 'openly-practicing, arrogant power grabs of rank-and-file worker exploitation, but those same erstwhile unions were the ones that systematically established stern work and safety rules and regulations, double time and a half for overtime, Hazard Pay, Workers Comp, and the elimination of a six- or seven-day workweek. They also provided for essential medical services, premium healthcare and an entire package that USED to carry a single person through to retirement without ever having to worry about taking a second——or THIRD job!

But, OH how I wish that you embraced those stern and judicious moral sentiments about the filthy, corrupt, entrenched and establishment-rigged politicians, Brother, ALL of whom have never stopped living off of ALL 'Other People's Hardearned Money' in their 'ALL PAY and NO WORK, DEFINED PENSION JOBS FOR LIFE!' Worse, New York City and New York State politicians have so completely betrayed ALL pretense of social contract, SOCIAL TRUST, ethics, integrity, ACCOUNTABILITY, transparency and productive, purposeful living, that they now DEVALUE honesty itself——to pathologically high treasonous, traitorous and tyrannical effect. Men have been hanged for LESS!

FINALLY, and ironically, on THAT last, critical 'White Hot' issue, you have oddly retreated into silence. You sound like one of those 'propagandized life forms' whose radical, anti-middle class diatribes are completely oblivious to the 'Cold Light of Day' reality that the safety work-and-labor nets that continue to vanish in this ever decaying, shabby society are the same critical measures of disappearing job and safety protections that have already hastened YOUR demise!

Enjoy the illusion of failed political power whilst it lasts, toothless crocodile!

❝Propaganda works best when those who are being manipulated are confident they are acting on their own free will.❞ ——Joseph Goebbels

Anonymous said...

PART Two:

❝The only difference between the Republican and Republican parties is the velocities with which their knees hit the floor when corporations knock on their door. That's the only difference.❞ ——Ralph Nader

❝The brilliance of Bill Clinton is that he transformed the Democratic Party into the Republican Party, and he pushed the Republican Party so far to the right——it went insane.❞ ——Chris Hedges

❝The gentle art of politics is getting votes from the poor, and campaign funds from the rich——by promising to protect EACH from the OTHER.❞ —Oscar Ameringer

❝A bureaucrat is the most despicable of men, though he is needed as vultures are needed, but one hardly admires vultures whom bureaucrats so strangely resemble. I have yet to meet a bureaucrat who was not petty, dull, almost witless, crafty or stupid, an oppressor or a thief, a holder of little authority in which he delights, as a boy delights in possessing a vicious dog. Who can trust such creatures?❞ ——Marcus Tullius Cicero

❝The inability to grasp the pathology of our oligarchic rulers is one of our gravest faults.❞ ——Chris Hedges

❝The study of money, above all other fields in economics, is one in which complexity is used to disguise truth, or to evade truth——not to reveal it.❞ ——John Kenneth Galbraith

❝Governments in capitalist society are but committees of the rich to manage the affairs of the capitalist class.❞ ——James Connolly

❝Laws are created to be followed by the poor. Laws are created by the rich to bring some order to exploitation of the poor. The poor are the only law-abiders in history. When the poor make laws——the rich will be no more.❞ ——Roque Dalton García (1974)

❝The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way——and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.❞ ——Frank Zappa

❝It’s ridiculous to talk about freedom in a society dominated by huge corporations. What kind of freedom is there inside a corporation? They’re totalitarian institutions——you take orders from above, and maybe give them to people below you. There’s about as much freedom as under Stalinism.❞ ——Noam Chomsky

❝Alas, mental slavery is the worst form of slavery. It gives one the illusion of freedom, makes one trust, love and defend one's oppressor, while making an enemy of those whom are trying to free you—and to open your eyes!❞ ——Anonymous

❝Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.❞ ——John Adams

❝The collapse of the Roman Empire is a few pages in your high school history book, but in reality it took nearly 250 years. Generations lived WHOLE lives inside of the collapse——which is EXACTLY where we are right now——that our WHOLE lives will be lived inside of those few pages called 'collapse.'❞ ——David Sirota (@davidsirota)

Anonymous said...

Oh goodie, the quotation drone guy is back. More Of the same ole quotations for the Sheeple.

Anonymous said...

If all of the illegal immigrants who use the subways often, demand that the MTA keep the station agents so they can feel safe...the city would do a turn around and keep them.

Forget about us taxpayers and law-abiding citizens who go to work pay taxes and vote these political hacks into power.

We just don't matter to them at all.

NYC has sold out to criminals and law breakers. Get out while you can.

Anonymous said...

To the third Anonymous from the bottom who said:

❝Oh goodie, the quotation drone guy is back. More Of the same ole quotations for the Sheeple.❞

If you had listened to even a single one of those historic quotations, then you wouldn't be living in this 'shithole' borough in the FIRST place (of politically obedient-and-ravaged, corporate wage slaves, of whom you are clearly but one of many). Also, how ironic for you to label ME a 'drone guy' when your entirely driven life has been subjugated to a chain of insane, immoral orders and edicts that define one sad, insipid loop of inane dronery because of a dysfunctional dependence on politicians (NOT public servants), all of whom have told you to keep voting, as you have continually voted them back——the ultimate 'Useful Idiot' model for all political brainwashing and conformity to prevail, buttressed ironically by your own words of contempt, all of which are oblivious to the sad reality that our borough, our city, our state and our nation are collectively universal health care FREE, and under FOURTH World conditions, no less that reinforce the collapse of all pretense of society——with the exception, of course, of the sole politicians who SO ORDER the hastening of your demise——OH, GOODIE!

So, here's another one of those 'ole quotations' for you, Kreskin——and, THIS one's tailored JUST for YOU:

❝No amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot.❞ ——Mark Twain