ALBANY, N.Y. — New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has vetoed a bill that would have required two-person crews on New York City subway trains.
Assembly Bill 4873, sponsored by state Rep. Monique Chandler-Waterman (D-Brooklyn), would mandate that all Metropolitan Transportation Authority trains of two or more cars have a conductor as well as an operator. It had passed the state Assembly by a 144-0 vote and the Senate by a 57-2 vote.
Hochul vetoed the bill on Friday, Dec. 19. Her veto memo said the bill “would cost as much as $10 million annually, reducing service, and limiting the MTA’s ability to benefit from capital investments in modern rolling stock and signals.”
John Samuelsen, president of the Transport Workers Union, said in a social media post that “blue collar New Yorkers overwhelmingly support” the bill, and called the veto “futile.” He also wrote that two-person crews “remain and will always be there to provide high-quality service delivery.” John Chiarallo, president of TWU Local 100, said in a statement reported by NY1 that while the union was disappointed by the veto, “our contract prohibits the further unilateral expansion of the practice [of one-person operation] on the subway system, and we will continue to operate the trains as we have been, and how it is safest — with both a train operator and conductor aboard.”
A statement from a coalition of five watchdog and business groups including New York’s Citizens Budget Commission and the Partnership for New York City thanked Hochul for the veto. The groups said the bill would have hindered efforts to provide “world-class public transit” by “raising MTA operating costs and constraining the MTA’s ability to implement modern operating methods, adopt new technologies, and provide better service for riders.”
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Who opens and closes the doors?
The motorman looks out his window along the length of the train and does the deed. The only curved platform I know of that would make this difficult is 14th Street-Union Square, but I could be wrong. One more thought – Ralph Kramden would call 10 million a “mere bag of shells” to NY State.