The NYC Transit Authority, a division of the MTA, resumed all subway track and tunnel work starting today. All non-essential work was stopped after the second transit worker death in five days occurred on Sunday.
NYC TA president Howard Roberts and Transit Workers Union president Roger Toussaint have been working together to improve safety. Among the safety improvements is that supervisors will now have radios (it still boggles the mind that they didn't have them before). Additionally, broken controls that are supposed to allow workers to shut off power will be fixed.
Other safety measures are being discussed; according to the NY Times, they include "possibly increasing restrictions on the speed and movement of trains running on tracks adjacent to those that employees are working on, and exploring new ways to alert work crews to oncoming trains, like developing portable alarms." Some workers are still undergoing safety re-training (those include signal and construction workers), but re-training also involved cleaners, conductors, and operators. And one transit worker was impressed with the safety refresher classes, saying, "Previously it seemed like our opinion did not count, and right now it seems that people are reaching out for our opinions and at least writing them down."
