Abstract
This paper presents the exploration of the New York City Transit subway system in terms of its safety. Compared to other means of transportation, subways are free of traffic congestion, save money, and free time for pursuing different activities, including education, work, shopping, and so on. The observations of the subway infrastructure and passengers are integrated with the literature that provides relevant facts. The paper begins with an overview of passengers’ behaviors and their impact on safety issues. It is stated that the identified subway has a unique atmosphere of little care acts, even though people are generally inattentive to each other. For example, those with young children say they are often helped to carry strollers. The police officers and station staff are always there to help with any cases, while the New York City Transit plans to pay more attention to promoting the culture of safety among passengers.
Introduction
A life in such large cities as New York significantly depends on public transportation systems that are expected to ensure easy and convenient trip experience from one place to another. The New York City Transit subway is one of the most rapid and oldest systems that operate since 1904. It is a “high-volume subway system, carrying an average of 5.4 million passengers per day—1.6 billion per year” (Nieminen, et al., 2016, p. 25). This paper aims to explore the subway of New York in terms of its safety, which is based on observations and scholarly literature. Although New York’s metropolitan tries to follow modern standards of safety and innovation, passengers lack the awareness of safe behaviors, which increases the risks to their health, others’ lives, and the system in general.
Passenger Behaviors, Subway Infrastructure, and COVID-19 Changes
When it comes to safety, mindfulness and caution are the key factors in underground transport. The main mistake of modern people is the movement in the subway and escalator, looking at their smartphone screens. In this case, one will not be able to see and react in time during a dangerous situation, while such inattention can cause injury to other passengers. The observations show that the majority of people in the New York subway do not pay enough attention to being alert since they are engaged in their smartphones. This leads to the fact that they do not notice many issues, raising their eyes only in case of fighting or some other dangerous activity. Another observation is that many customers sleep during their trips, which helps them isolate from others.
Even though the primary goal of trips in the subway is reaching the desired destination, the observations show that there are some small manifestations of care. Obviously, the subway is not a space for practicing love for one’s neighbor. However, people’s behaviors confirm that on the subway, they tend to be polite and caring, which does not require much effort from them. For example, they will not always help one with his or her suitcase, but if one needs to make room, they will give up; if one needs to move so that people can sit together, he or she will probably move; and also many passengers hold the door at the exit from the subway. They can be considered the links that support the strangers helping each other, which indicates that the subway has a unique atmosphere of mutual help.
According to the general safety rules, passengers should never stand at the edge of the platform. While waiting for the train, they should stand at the wall, near the columns, or in the middle of the station until the doors open (Nieminen, et al., 2016). Otherwise, there is a risk of falling under the wheels of an approaching train due to an accidental crush or deliberate actions of others. Nevertheless, these rules are often not followed, especially during rush hours, when thousands of people leave their workplaces for returning home. The observations indicate that some people do not patiently wait for the car doors to open and the passengers to leave to enter. If there are a lot of people in the car, they do not skip one or two trains, so as not to be overwhelmed by the crowd. The neglect of the basic safety rules can lead to traumas and accidents, as well as failures in the work of the subway.
Despite the overall inattentiveness of passengers in the subway, they can react to emergency cases and have general knowledge of how to behave. The case that was observed refers to a man who stood close to the platform and fell down on the rails because of the pressure from the crowd. An older woman, who probably saw this first, immediately sent two people nearby to report this to the station attendant. Another person ran to the edge of the platform at the exit of the tunnel to signal to stop to the car driver, waving up and down a bright scarf.
The men who fell looked like he hearted his leg, but he was able to move. 2-3 people started guiding him to make sure that he does not touch the contact rail at the edge of the platform. While one person tried to make an attempt to pull the victim out, others stopped him, explaining that it is too dangerous. Since the station staff was rapidly notified about this situation, the driver of the oncoming train was notified in advance, and the accident was prevented. This observation case shows that passengers can cooperate in emergency cases, which is especially valuable, considering that their efforts helped to avoid death. In addition, it points to the need to promote safety among passengers, calling them to be more attentive and alert during their trips.
It becomes clear that the subway is an aging technology as failures are increasingly occurring: trains stop, and stations become closed for repairs. These disruptions call into question the safety of the subway, the main advantage of which is uninterrupted operation, which allows calculating the time in a modern city and making a life more predictable (Luo et al., 2020). When it crashes, it annoys people, causing dissatisfaction with the subway’s inconsistency with standards: old cars, high levels of noise and pollution, and a huge number of people during rush hours, when you cannot control yourself because the crowd is carrying you. Modern passengers do not agree to tolerate this. However, it should be stated that the New York City Transit subway tries to innovate by introducing available Wi-Fi and following contemporary COVID-19 regulations. For example, the disinfection and social isolation measures are considered to “sustain 88% of transit flow while reducing the risk of disease transmission by 50 %” (Luo et al., 2020, p. 24). Even though optimizations are quite slow, they are persistent.
New York’s subway is often perceived as a totally controlled space because of police squads, video surveillance, metal detectors, and so on. It could be assumed that all this is not perceived positively by some people. Others state that the control limits their freedom and, in general, they are not happy with this, but, at the same time, they admitted that the subway for them is an island of safety in the city. One young woman complained about the video surveillance system as one of the horrors of the subway, but told the story of how she was chased on the street and ran in the subway to protect herself, being sure that the subway is the place where one will definitely be helped. People agree that the metro is a more protected space, because the car can be blocked, and money can be taken away. On the one hand, passengers perceive the subway as the place where they are safe. On the other hand, they admit that emergencies can happen despite the control.
The New York City Transit subway system claims that safety is their priority, calling passengers to be aware of their environments and report about incidents. According to MTA’s official website, the organization has a well-developed vision of safety and security as there are details about reporting and staying safe. For example, it is possible to use a station Help Point interaction, call 911, or find a police officer for assistance. The MTA Police Department is committed to securing and patrolling stations, crossroads, and other infrastructure locations. Great attention is paid to the Penn Station, Grand Central Terminal, and Staten Island Railway as the locations with the highest traffic (Safety and security, 2020). In addition, there is the New York Police Department (NYPD) Transit Bureau that cooperates with the police to patrol stations and subway lines.
The identified subway system offers passengers the opportunity to provide feedback about non-emergency cases that require improvements. For example, the cars of subways have four-digit numbers that should be reported so that the New York City Transit employees would easily find and address problems with equipment (Rosa, 2020). Another potential benefit of reporting these ID numbers is the possibility to use cameras that might include any cases of insecurity. For example, if an incident of sexual misbehavior or hate crime occurred, the police officers would look for the related video records to clarify the situation (Safety and security, 2020). However, it should be stressed that this information is not available to all passengers since I have only learned it from the official website. Probably, it would be better if brief notices can be placed on stations and inside subway cars, which would keep passengers aware that they can contribute to safety.
Conclusion
To conclude, this paper found that New York’s subway is perceived by passengers as a relatively safe place, where they can seek and receive help, if needed. The little acts of care are a characteristic feature of the subway in New York. In the subway, it is more problematic to commit a crime: it is much more difficult to attack a person in a crowded place because people protect their presence, not to mention possible help. Nevertheless, the aging infrastructure, emergencies and accidents, as well as crimes are the factors that lower the subway’s safety.
References
Nieminen, L., Bianco, C., & Denison, D. (2016). Transforming the safety culture at New York City Transit. People and Strategy, 39(1), 24-28.
Luo, Q., Gee, M., Piccoli, B., Work, D., & Samaranayake, S. (2020). Managing public transit during a pandemic: The trade-off between safety and mobility. Social Science Research Network, 1-34.
Safety and security. (2020). Web.
Rosa, A. (2020). Subways are less busy and less safe. The New York Times. Web.