Track Safety Task Force
Paul Fleuranges: I'm Paul Fleuranges, and you're listening to an In The News podcast on TransitTrax, New York City Transit's podcast service.
(Audio of trains running)
The 660 miles of track at the heart of the New York City subway system are maintained by a dedicated group of Track, Signal and other Transit workers. They work in confined space, making repairs and replacing infrastructure. It's hard work, performed under difficult conditions, often while trains are operating in service. It's also dangerous, as the deaths last spring of track workers Daniel Boggs and Marvin Franklin tragically reminded us. After those deaths, New York City Transit and the Transport Workers Union embarked on a collaborative effort to examine Track Safety. The results of the Track Safety Task Force were recently released, in a report which recommended 63 changes to make working on the right of way safer. Elliot Sander is Executive Director and CEO of the MTA.
Elliot Sander, CEO, Metropolitan Transportation Authority: It was clear after the tragic deaths of Marvin Franklin, Danny Boggs, that the MTA New York City Transit needed to address this issue with the greatest level of intensity; this was an issue that was longstanding, that was deep-rooted. I am pleased with this report, with these 63 recommendations we have taken an aggressive posture and I think we will have a safer track safety program as a result of this effort.
Paul Fleuranges: The Task Force was charged with examining the issue of employee track safety from the roadbed up, taking a hard look at the culture of these jobs and how they are performed, including a review of accidents going back a decade. Howard H. Roberts Jr. is New York City Transit's President.
Howard Roberts, Jr., President, New York City Transit: A lot of times, you have an accident; you go out and you look at what the specific details that caused that accident and you try to fix those, and particularly given that we had tragedy strike twice within five days, the decision was made: we're not just going to look, do a Board of Inquiry on this accident, do a Board of Inquiry on that accident: we are in fact going to look at everything that happens out there, at the total environment, the total atmosphere, the total situation and that is why the task force was created, in effect to do a 360-degree examination of: if you were a track worker, you go out on the track, what you're going to experience, and what we can do to ensure that every night you go home safely.
Paul Fleuranges: Crucial was the input from employees--both those who work along the tracks and those who operate trains.
Roger Toussaint, President, TWU Local 100: These recommendations would certainly improve safety a great deal. What was also important was that the exercise was a joint exercise between Labor and Management and the emphasis was on changing culture and behavior, rather than assigning blame.
Paul Fleuranges: Roger Toussaint is President of Transport Workers Union Local 100.
Roger Toussaint: The important thing here is in fact figuring out how to change the safety culture both of employees and managers.
Paul Fleuranges: The recommendations cover everything from operational issues in track safety to improvements in training and communication--including handing out radios to work crews. All flagging will be standardized. Joint Union Management audits and inspections will be increased and there will be changes to how Board of Inquiry investigations are conducted.
Roger Toussaint: The most important recommendations concern improved flagging on adjacent tracks on the track way and also a prohibition against work while trains are being reversed and prohibition against work in areas where the emergency telephones and the emergency alarm boxes are controlled with (...) power are inoperable.
Paul Fleuranges: In layman's terms, flagging is essentially a manual signal system, deployed to let train operators know when workers are on the tracks: red for stop, yellow for proceed with caution and green for go. Special attention was paid to flags deployed on tracks next to where employees are working.
Howard Roberts: As Roger Toussaint said, the ones that pertain to flagging are among the most significant; most have been implemented, some of them remain to be implemented (...) If you go back and look at all the accidents over the years that have cost fatalities, you find that very frequently a person literally has only had a couple of inches of their body intruding on an active track and that couple of inches has cost them their life.
Paul Fleuranges: As inclusive as this report and the recommendations produced are, both TWU and New York City Transit officials stress the Task Force's work is just beginning, and that change will not come overnight.
Roger Toussaint: What will change behavior is redundancies: redundancies in training, redundancies in rules, in the audits, so that there is a mindset that safety has to be a shared responsibility of everyone affected, whether supervisory or hourlies; it requires work; propagating a rule in itself doesn't produce a different result, but persistence does.
Howard H. Roberts, Jr.: The other thing that we are trying to do is to figure out ways that we can impress upon the individual employee the importance of working safely and going home each night to their families.
Paul Fleuranges: Most recommendations of the task force have already been adopted; all should be in place by January. For TransitTrax, I'm Paul Fleuranges. Thanks for listening and thanks for riding with New York City Transit.
Back to Transittrax Main Page
Paul Fleuranges: I'm Paul Fleuranges, and you're listening to an In The News podcast on TransitTrax, New York City Transit's podcast service.
(Audio of trains running)
The 660 miles of track at the heart of the New York City subway system are maintained by a dedicated group of Track, Signal and other Transit workers. They work in confined space, making repairs and replacing infrastructure. It's hard work, performed under difficult conditions, often while trains are operating in service. It's also dangerous, as the deaths last spring of track workers Daniel Boggs and Marvin Franklin tragically reminded us. After those deaths, New York City Transit and the Transport Workers Union embarked on a collaborative effort to examine Track Safety. The results of the Track Safety Task Force were recently released, in a report which recommended 63 changes to make working on the right of way safer. Elliot Sander is Executive Director and CEO of the MTA.
Elliot Sander, CEO, Metropolitan Transportation Authority: It was clear after the tragic deaths of Marvin Franklin, Danny Boggs, that the MTA New York City Transit needed to address this issue with the greatest level of intensity; this was an issue that was longstanding, that was deep-rooted. I am pleased with this report, with these 63 recommendations we have taken an aggressive posture and I think we will have a safer track safety program as a result of this effort.
Paul Fleuranges: The Task Force was charged with examining the issue of employee track safety from the roadbed up, taking a hard look at the culture of these jobs and how they are performed, including a review of accidents going back a decade. Howard H. Roberts Jr. is New York City Transit's President.
Howard Roberts, Jr., President, New York City Transit: A lot of times, you have an accident; you go out and you look at what the specific details that caused that accident and you try to fix those, and particularly given that we had tragedy strike twice within five days, the decision was made: we're not just going to look, do a Board of Inquiry on this accident, do a Board of Inquiry on that accident: we are in fact going to look at everything that happens out there, at the total environment, the total atmosphere, the total situation and that is why the task force was created, in effect to do a 360-degree examination of: if you were a track worker, you go out on the track, what you're going to experience, and what we can do to ensure that every night you go home safely.
Paul Fleuranges: Crucial was the input from employees--both those who work along the tracks and those who operate trains.
Roger Toussaint, President, TWU Local 100: These recommendations would certainly improve safety a great deal. What was also important was that the exercise was a joint exercise between Labor and Management and the emphasis was on changing culture and behavior, rather than assigning blame.
Paul Fleuranges: Roger Toussaint is President of Transport Workers Union Local 100.
Roger Toussaint: The important thing here is in fact figuring out how to change the safety culture both of employees and managers.
Paul Fleuranges: The recommendations cover everything from operational issues in track safety to improvements in training and communication--including handing out radios to work crews. All flagging will be standardized. Joint Union Management audits and inspections will be increased and there will be changes to how Board of Inquiry investigations are conducted.
Roger Toussaint: The most important recommendations concern improved flagging on adjacent tracks on the track way and also a prohibition against work while trains are being reversed and prohibition against work in areas where the emergency telephones and the emergency alarm boxes are controlled with (...) power are inoperable.
Paul Fleuranges: In layman's terms, flagging is essentially a manual signal system, deployed to let train operators know when workers are on the tracks: red for stop, yellow for proceed with caution and green for go. Special attention was paid to flags deployed on tracks next to where employees are working.
Howard Roberts: As Roger Toussaint said, the ones that pertain to flagging are among the most significant; most have been implemented, some of them remain to be implemented (...) If you go back and look at all the accidents over the years that have cost fatalities, you find that very frequently a person literally has only had a couple of inches of their body intruding on an active track and that couple of inches has cost them their life.
Paul Fleuranges: As inclusive as this report and the recommendations produced are, both TWU and New York City Transit officials stress the Task Force's work is just beginning, and that change will not come overnight.
Roger Toussaint: What will change behavior is redundancies: redundancies in training, redundancies in rules, in the audits, so that there is a mindset that safety has to be a shared responsibility of everyone affected, whether supervisory or hourlies; it requires work; propagating a rule in itself doesn't produce a different result, but persistence does.
Howard H. Roberts, Jr.: The other thing that we are trying to do is to figure out ways that we can impress upon the individual employee the importance of working safely and going home each night to their families.
Paul Fleuranges: Most recommendations of the task force have already been adopted; all should be in place by January. For TransitTrax, I'm Paul Fleuranges. Thanks for listening and thanks for riding with New York City Transit.
Back to Transittrax Main Page
