The Metropolitan Transportation Authority's emergency exits are riddled with hazards, including crumbling walls, exposed wiring and even broken handrails on walkways 30 feet above ground, a scathing new audit has found.
Officials with the MTA Office of Inspector General Daniel G. Cote inspected 163 locations and found that a whopping 41% were in need of immediate or near-term repairs. Meanwhile, an audit report has revealed that 54% of the 65 exit stairwells inspected suffered from “significant deficiencies”. Thursday.
“During my site visit, I saw first-hand some of the issues highlighted in the audit, and I am deeply concerned by the poor conditions I observed,” Cote said in a statement.
Exits to subway and MTA facilities were riddled with trip hazards, obstructions, non-existent lighting and corrosion, the audit found.
Inspectors have found that subway emergency exits are littered with hazards, including hatches that won't open from the inside and structural defects in concrete ceilings and walls that are reported to be “severely cracked and dilapidated.” It turns out.
Auditors say exit corridors require safe and unobstructed exit doors, stairs, sidewalks along elevated tracks and walkways in subway tunnels. This walkway can be used by riders in emergencies or by workers for repairs and inspections.
Inspectors also found leaks and poor drainage leading to corrosion and structural damage.
Elevated tracks were even more dangerous, with handrails that could come loose or break and could be more than 100 feet long, according to the audit.
Even in areas 30 feet above the road, the railings are so loose that “they cannot hold when significant weight is placed on them,” the report said. The report did not say where the most dangerous railings were located, but noted that loose railings occur more frequently in Queens and Brooklyn than in the Bronx.
The audit found that subway exits often had “dirty or broken” lighting fixtures, and in some cases had poor lighting or no lighting at all. In some cases, auditors reportedly had to navigate by flashlight.
The report noted that the most pressing pitfalls had been fixed by MTA officials by the time the audit results were released nearly a year later.
The report said the MTA did not discover the problem itself due to shoddy inspections.
The report says that only 13% of the serious deficiencies identified by the OIG were previously discovered by MTA inspectors, and MTA inspection reports are vague and do not allow repair workers to know what to do. It says there is a lack of helpful details and photos.
When problems were reported by MTA inspectors, they were rarely resolved in a timely manner, according to the report. The report found that about 76% of the “major deficiencies” reported by MTA inspectors were not responded to by repair crews within 90 days, as required by New York City transit policy.
The MTA rejected the auditor's recommendations for a variety of reasons. In some cases, transit giants have directly opposed the OIG's recommendations, and in other cases the MTA has argued that its current policies and procedures are already sufficient.
MTA Chairman and CEO Jano Lieber said Thursday at an unrelated press conference that the OIG's report identified “temporary situations” such as chained exit doors and cracks in concrete. “Confused,” he said.
Lieber said emergency exits were “working properly” during evacuations last week when two Brooklyn F trains lost power between stations, leaving 3,500 subway riders stranded underground for nearly three hours. He said it has been proven. He blamed the fire department for evacuating for hours without air conditioning.
“We are very careful with our emergency exits, and we had to use them again this week and they worked fine. “We're working to help them get out faster,” Lieber said.
In its December response to the report, the MTA promised that all hazards at emergency exits would be fixed by the second quarter of 2025.
According to the response letter, the MTA also agrees with recommendations to improve the inspection process and that its 2025-2029 capital plan includes $100 million for emergency exits, which would be “lower than the previous “It's the most important investment we've ever made.”
But the MTA rejected the OIG's recommendation to assign responsibility for handrail inspections to specific workers, saying technicians were already conducting “visual inspections,” according to the report.
The embarrassing report comes as the MTA comes under fire for rush-hour power outages, unpopular Manhattan congestion charges, and an impending fare increase that would increase subway and bus fares by up to $3.
The agency has also been skewered for questionable spending, including plans to pay contractors up to $1 million for a report on fare jumper thinking.
