Feb 10, 2006 12:17 am US/Eastern
CBS 2 Reports: Subway Safety In Question
Technological Shortcomings Could Put Riders In Danger
by Brendan Keefe
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
Help could be just on the other side of a door. Unless that door is locked.
You've seen emergency instructions on virtually every New York City subway car. They say notify train crew immediately.
But you'll discover the doors are locked on more than 1,600 cars on the A, D, F, N and R lines.
So what do you do if there's a threat in your car while the subway is hurtling through a tunnel or stuck between stations? Let's say there was guy with a knife on the train, what would you do?
In virtually every emergency the instructions from the NYC Transit Authority are to notify a train crew, but how are you going to notify a train crew when there's no intercom system, the doors are locked and about four cars away from the conductor? Essentially you could be trapped underground.
Lt. Steve Carbone of the Uniformed Fire Officers Association says the locked end doors and lack of two-way intercoms make those 1,649 subway cars rolling firetraps.
"If there's ever a fire condition or a smoke condition and they can't notify the conductor or the motorman, people could suffer serious injury," Carbone said.
But NYC Transit says the 75-foot cars on the A, D, F, N and R lines have dangerous gaps when the trains go around curves, so the end doors have been locked since 1972.
But the world has changed in the last 34 years.
NYC Transit says in cases of emergency, either the train operator or conductor can unlock the doors from their operating positions.
But what if they don't know there's an emergency?
"They're giving the passenger a false sense of hope here," Carbone said.
NYC Transit proudly points to the more than 1,800 new "high-tech" cars on the 2, 4, 5, 6 and 1 lines with unlocked end doors and two-way intercoms connecting riders to train crew. CBS 2 went to 72nd Street in Manhattan to find out how useful those intercoms might be in an emergency:
Take this example. A high-tech 2 train pulled into the station. CBS 2 asked riders if they see a telephone or intercom system. They all said no. They are then told to look at the ceiling. Most riders we spoke to didn't know the intercoms were there.
As for those emergency instruction signs, there are warnings all over the subway system not to pull the brake cord in an emergency, but that's exactly what NYC Transit officials said you should do to alert the train crew when on a car with locked end doors, but only once the train has reached the next station.
"It's words," Carbone said. "That's all it is."
NYC Transit says it's not technically feasible to retrofit those older cars with intercoms, but transit workers disagree and say the Metropolitan Transportation Authority should spend some of its surplus to make trains safer.
(© MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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