A comptroller’s audit released Thursday reaffirmed what many New York City straphangers might say is obvious: the subways are really dirty.
The audit revealed that just 3 percent of the city’s 276 underground subway stations were cleaned to New York City Transit’s own standards, the comptroller’s office said. The conditions could expose millions of commuters to track fires, delays and rat infestations, the audit said.
“The MTA is constantly reminding riders to clean up after themselves, but they’re setting a poor example by letting piles of trash on the tracks fester for months on end,” Comptroller Scott Stringer said. “Our auditors observed rats scurrying over the tracks and onto subway platforms, and it’s almost as if they were walking upright -- waiting to take the train to their next meal. This is a daily, stomach-turning insult to millions of straphangers, and it’s unworthy of a world-class city.”
The audit checked to see if the MTA was meeting its own goals for cleaning tracks and painting subway stations between July 2013 and June 2014, the comptroller’s office said.
During the observation period, only 7 of the city’s underground station tracks were cleaned every three weeks, with about 243 of the stations being cleaned less than eight times in the year.
In one particularly egregious instance, the comptroller’s office said, two sets of tracks at the Atlantic Avenue -- Barclays Center stop weren’t cleaned at all for four months. When cleaning crew members finally made their way to the tracks, they collected 122 bags of garbage, the audit said.
The audit also found that the city’s two vacuum trains, which suck up debris from the tracks, only cleaned about 12 percent of the city’s stations over the course of the year. When they did roll through a station, the audit found, they only cleaned about 1/3 of the track.
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The problems extended to the platforms, too. Auditors found that 31 of the 39 stations that underwent Fastrack work between July 2013 and June 2014 had extensive peeling paint, but only seven were re-painted. And during the first three months of 2015, the audit found, workers painted several stations that didn’t need it.
