WASHINGTON — The Federal Transit Administration on Tuesday warned it could take actions against New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority — including withholding 25% of the transit agency’s federal funding — over what the FTA called New York City Transit’s failure to address safety risks for subway track maintenance workers.
The FTA issued a special directive in August 2024 ordering the MTA to address what it called an “escalating pattern of safety incidents” including 38 near-miss situations in 2023 and a worker fatality in November of that year. [see “New York City Transit ordered …,” Trains.com, Aug. 16, 2024].
The federal agency now says the New York City Transit risk assessments conducted in response to that directive “failed to adequately account for a rise in risk levels and excluded critical data” — specifically that the rate of incidents between 2021 and 2023 was approximately 3.4 times higher than during the preceding eight years.
“I am disturbed by MTA’s failure to reinforce safety measures following serious accidents — one resulting in the death of a transit worker,” FTA Administrator Marc Molinaro said in a press release. “ …. Safety is USDOT’s top priority, and we will not accept anything less than full accountability.”
The FTA release says New York City Transit has 30 days to submit a new risk assessment. If it fails to meet that deadline or produce an adequate assessment, FTA actions could include directing New York City Transit to use federal funding to correct safety issues, withholding 25% of federal funding, and issuing “restrictions or prohibitions as necessary to address unsafe conditions or practices that present a substantial risk of death or personal injury.”
John McCarthy, the MTA’s chief of policy and external relations, said in a Tuesday statement that the FTA questions had been addressed seven months ago, but that the MTA was “not surprised to receive this letter out of the blue now.” He called the FTA action part of “a pattern of threatening letters and punitive actions by US DOT following New York’s successful implementation of the first-in-the-nation Congestion Pricing program. … A Federal judge has made it absolutely clear that punishing New York for maintaining Congestion Pricing is a violation of his injunction, which remains in effect. We are reviewing this latest letter to determine any appropriate legal action.”
The MTA also said NYC Transit has been having regular meetings with the FTA about employee safety since last fall, and that employee safety audits were conducted “with labor partners” to identify areas for improvement.
Transport Workers Union International President John Samuelsen said in the FTA release that the MTA “has a decades-old pattern of exposing workers to harms way. It is vital that the Federal Transit Administration hold the MTA accountable for its failures.”
The latest issue comes against a backdrop of ongoing disputes between the MTA and Trump administration. Along with a court fight over the U.S. Department of Transportation’s efforts to rescind permission for congestion pricing, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy previously said the DOT could withhold funding if the MTA did not provide information on how it was addressing crime on its system. [See “Citing crime concerns, federal government threatens …,” Trains.com, March 19, 2025]. McCarthy responded by saying the MTA was happy to discuss the topic, since at that time, crime was down 40% compared to the same period immediately prior to the pandemic, and major crimes were at a lower level than any non-pandemic year.
I don’t know anything about the safety issues. My question is this: If/ when Mayor Mamdani and the city council abolish farers, if that happens, should federal funding be withdrawn?