{"id":103224,"date":"2026-01-17T12:16:06","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T12:16:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/103224\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T12:16:06","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T12:16:06","slug":"why-cant-new-york-get-rid-of-2-person-subway-crews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/103224\/","title":{"rendered":"Why can\u2019t New York get rid of 2-person subway crews?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Late last year, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul vetoed<\/a> a bill that would have required<\/a> two-person operating crews on New York City subways, despite heavy pressure from transit unions. While the veto looked like a win for fiscal sanity, two-person train crews\u2014and needlessly expensive transit systems\u2014are likely here for the foreseeable future.<\/p>\n

The bill, which would have mandated both a driver and a conductor on each train, cleared the state Legislature somewhat unexpectedly last year. It was pushed by the Transport Workers Union (TWU) to permanently codify more union jobs into state law.<\/p>\n

Most NYC subway lines already<\/a> operate with two-person crews under the current labor contract between the TWU and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Hochul’s veto stopped two-person crews from spreading systemwide, and it theoretically left the door open for the topic to be renegotiated in future labor talks, rather than being cemented into state law.<\/p>\n

NYC’s two-person system is a global outlier. An analysis<\/a> from New York University’s Marron Institute of Urban Management found that just 6 percent of the world’s commuter rail lines use two-person crews, with most operating safely with a single driver for decades.<\/p>\n

Although unions insist two-person crews are essential for safety, evidence suggests otherwise. The Manhattan Institute’s Adam Lehodey has documented<\/a> that London, which uses one-person crews, operates one of the safest rail networks in the world. Research from the Association of American Railroads, which compared one-person trains in Europe to America’s multiperson freight train system, similarly found<\/a> no evidence of a safety impact.<\/p>\n

But, as TWU President John Samuelsen told The New York Times<\/a>, “It doesn’t really matter to us what the data shows,” adding that a driver and a conductor make trips “visibly safer.”<\/p>\n

The fight over crew size extends beyond New York. Under President Joe Biden, the Federal Railroad Administration enacted a rule<\/a> mandating two-person crews for freight trains nationwide. While one might expect this rule to be repealed in a Republican administration, the GOP’s continued bear hug with organized labor has muddied the waters.<\/p>\n

President Donald Trump’s Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and FRA Administrator David Fink both voiced support<\/a> for the Biden-era two-person crew rule during their confirmation hearings. During his time in the Senate, Vice President J.D. Vance co-sponsored<\/a>\u2014along with numerous other Republicans, including Sen. John Hawley (R\u2013Mo.) and then-Sen. Marco Rubio (R\u2013Fla.)\u2014the Railway Safety Act<\/a>, which would have legislatively mandated two-person freight crews.<\/p>\n

The contradiction is especially stark in rail policy, as Trump recently fired<\/a> numerous Surface Transportation Board members, presumably in an effort to greenlight railroad mergers\u2014the type of pro-railroad stance that collides with the administration’s pro-union crew-size priors.<\/p>\n

Beyond failing to improve safety, two-person crews are substantially more expensive. Switching to one-person crews would save the MTA $442 million<\/a> a year. That money could fund real safety improvements, such as the installation of platform doors<\/a>, which provide a physical barrier between passengers and the train until the train has come to a complete stop. After platform doors were installed in Seoul, South Korea, annual subway deaths dropped<\/a> from 70 to two.<\/p>\n

If anything, Hochul’s veto merely gives new NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani more flexibility in future labor negotiations between the TWU and the MTA. Based on the mayor’s track record<\/a>, it’s unlikely he’ll be a voice for one-person crews.<\/p>\n

Given likely political support from both City Hall and the White House, two-person crews appear entrenched\u2014and riders will keep paying for them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Late last year, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul vetoed a bill that would have required two-person operating crews…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":103225,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[230,47131,12618,9877,9,24,55,54,56,308,47132,655],"class_list":{"0":"post-103224","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-biden-administration","9":"tag-government-waste","10":"tag-j-d-vance","11":"tag-local-government","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-city","14":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","15":"tag-new-york-city-news","16":"tag-ny","17":"tag-public-safety","18":"tag-public-unions","19":"tag-trump-administration"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103224"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103224\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}