The MTA’s inspector general said Thursday that he was “deeply concerned” about the poor condition of emergency exits in the subway system, as detailed in a report released by his office.
“I saw firsthand some of the issues highlighted in our audit during site visits,” MTA IG Daniel Cort said in a statement. “I am deeply concerned about the poor conditions we observed.”
Investigators with the Office of the MTA Inspector General (OIG) inspected 65 of the subway system’s 549 emergency exit stairwells between October and December of last year, and found 35 of them to have “serious defects,” according to the report.
Of those, 18 exits — 28% of those inspected by the IG — “should not be considered adequate for safe egress or access,” according to the report. The other 17 emergency exits “require repair in the short-to-medium term.”
Investigators found one of the underground escape route’s hatches would not open from the inside, and cited “several others” as being difficult to open.
Other emergency egresses, investigators wrote, “had inadequate lighting or no lighting at all; OIG and NYC Transit staff had to navigate these facilities by flashlight because no backup lighting was in place.”
The inspections also turned up cracked concrete, corrosion and other structural deficiencies, according to the report.
The IG’s office also inspected tunnel benchwalls leading to emergency exits, and emergency walkways along elevated lines, assessing 163 MTA assets in total. Investigators wrote that 41% of these had defects that required immediate or near-term attention.
Scattered at regular intervals throughout the system’s roughly 440 miles of underground track, emergency exit stairwells provide a last-ditch means of getting passengers stranded on a subway out of the system and onto the street.
At least one emergency exit was used last week, when the MTA evacuated some 3,500 passengers stuck on two stranded F trains after a transformer explosion took out third-rail power in downtown Brooklyn.
“Three thousand five hundred customers were just evacuated last week, and it was done safely,” NYC Transit President Demetrius Crichlow told reporters Thursday. “Our goal, obviously, is to keep our customers on trains. But if the unfortunate event comes that we have to evacuate, we’re confident that we can do it safely.”
“We’re really attentive to emergency exits,” said MTA Chairman Janno Lieber. “We’re absolutely committed [to them], not just because it’s the law and the code, but it’s a practical matter: Our riders need them and our employees need them.”
The OIG report states that some defects were addressed by maintenance teams on the spot during the investigators’ visit. Other conditions received “prompt repair” after being called in.
The report calls on the MTA to revise a slew of practices around inspections, reporting and repairs, only some of which were accepted by the transit agency.
Transit officials agreed to fix the remaining severe issues identified by OIG, and accepted several recommendations to overhaul the way inspections are conducted, plus make changes to inspection schedules to allow more time for repairs.
The MTA, though, rejected a suggestion that it adjust its staffing to meet spot-repair needs, instead saying staffing would be guided by the agency’s yearly financial plan.
The MTA also rejected the recommendation that it should better monitor the condition of lighting around the emergency exits, countering that transit workers’ flashlights were sufficient in an emergency.
“[A]dequate emergency egress lighting is comprised of both lighting fixtures and employees’ PPE [personal protective equipment], which includes flashlights,” the MTA responded. “To that end, existing policies concerning emergency evacuations within the system require employees to use their flashlights to illuminate the path of egress.”
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