Trash, vomit and feces: there are a lot of dirty carriages in the New York subway

The number of trains filled with dirt and debris is on the rise in the New York subway. The New York City Department of Transportation (MTA) is struggling to clean up the carriages as passengers return to the subway. Writes about it NY Daily News.

According to hundreds of internal MTA incident reports, there has been an alarming increase in the number of train carriages filled with feces, blood, vomit and debris since the beginning of the year.

The dirt is unevenly distributed throughout the trains. The dirtiest lines during the first five months of 2021 were # 4, 6 and 2.

It was reported that at least 67 trains # 4 from January to May were “contaminated”, which is a transit designation for unsanitary conditions. Train # 6, which runs on the same route in Manhattan as train # 4, had 66 reports of contaminated wagons, and trains # 2 had 57 messages.

The cleanest metro line in the city is L, and reports show there were only seven reports of dirt in carriages in the first five months of the year.

On the subject: What New York City Subway Stations Can't Endure the Most

“Sometimes you have to change the carriage because the urine smell becomes unbearable,” said Mehdi Chowdhury, 40, an Uber driver who lives in the Bronx and uses line 6 when he is not working. - And in the morning, a terrible mess. Spilled coffee all over the floor. "

Henry Brito, 22, uses trains 4 and 6 to get from the Bronx to work at Starbucks near City Hall. Conditions have worsened in recent months, he said.

“There are many more homeless people with much more trash than before during the pandemic,” Brito said.

Subway crews wrote at least 133 different reports of contaminated railcars in May, up 27% from May 2020, when the number of contaminated railcars dropped to 105 as New York Governor Andrew Cuomo closed the subway from 01:00 to 05: 00 to get rid of the homeless and clean the wagons.

A XNUMX-hour subway was rebuilt last month, but in December, the MTA began to notice a sharp increase in reports of contaminated train cars.

Several reports describe incidents of vomiting.

One report, dated May 22, describes a “homeless man covered in feces” who “defecated on himself and on the train seats” on a Q train heading north to Newkirk Plaza. When the cleaners found him and asked to leave, he refused.

After 10 minutes, the cops arrived and pulled him off the train. The subway crews had to kick everyone out of the train and take him out to the yard for cleaning. According to the report, it was brought back into service in the afternoon.

The increase in the number of drug addicts also put the train crews in uncomfortable situations - and made passengers wait longer on the platforms.

Subway crews at the Brooklyn end of Line 4 on Utica Avenue stumbled upon a man surrounded by syringes at around 12:8 am on May 20.

On the subject: New York City Subway Secrets: Bar Car, Colored Globes and 'Money Room'

The man refused to leave for 10 minutes, but eventually left the station before the police arrived. The report says he left behind "lots of syringes all over the floor."

The train was taken out of service and sent for cleaning. The report says that as a result, three train runs were canceled and two more were delayed.

But not all dirty trains have been taken out of service.

On May 21, the driver of train # 2 reported that a man was urinating on the other side of his cab door and a pool of urine was pouring down to his boots. The report says he had to stand in a puddle for 20 minutes before he reached Times Square station, where the brigades cleared everything.

When on May 27, the driver of train # 1 discovered the fallen box of eggs, the team isolated the car.

They asked the passengers to get into another carriage, locked the doors to prevent passengers from stepping on the eggs, and continued working.

A report dated May 14 describes a "carriage heavily stained with blood" of a person. Police said the 47-year-old man told police that he fell asleep and was awakened by someone hitting him in the face.

It was less than two hours after five strangers were wounded and beaten by a group of men on train # 4 heading south.

MTA spokesman Andrei Berman said that the most unpleasant incidents on the subway involve homeless passengers.

“Such incidents are regrettable. They are unsanitary for our customers and deeply unfair and harassing to the transport cleaners, ”Berman said. "They also remind us of the need to expand the coverage of social services support."

Last year, Cuomo issued an executive order authorizing transport authorities to award at least $ 19 million of COVID-371 clean-up contracts without tenders. The contracts included outsourcing to clean the trains.

Union officials said work will return to local 100 transport workers by the end of July, in accordance with an agreement between the union and the MTA.

This may require the MTA to quickly recruit and train new employees. As of April, the department had at least 200 vacant positions as a janitor of subway cars.