It's Wednesday. You've probably read about labor shortages nationwide. Today we'll look at the one that is affecting mass transit in the New York area. |
 | | Gregg Vigliotti for The New York Times |
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"I got lucky that there was such a need," said Rashaad Milligan, who started as a New York City subway conductor in September after working two jobs to make ends meet. |
The need is a chronic shortage of transit workers. Riders have been enduring it, with subways and buses that come less often or scheduled trips that are canceled because transit agencies cannot muster enough crews. |
Transit agencies are struggling to rebuild a work force that was battered by the pandemic. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which runs New York's subway and buses, has openings for more than 600 train operators, train conductors and bus drivers. |
"It's a big problem," said Lisa Daglian, the executive director of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the M.T.A., a watchdog group. "In order for there to be sufficient service, there needs to be sufficient crews." |
The M.T.A. has accelerated its hiring after lifting a hiring freeze for certain workers in February, when federal pandemic relief stabilized the agency's finances. It recently sent nearly 800 letters to train operators and conductors who had retired within the past three years, asking them to come back to work for up to $35,000 for three months. So far, 20 have said yes. |
The M.T.A. is hardly the only transit agency that has put up a help-wanted sign. Amtrak lost 10 percent of its engineers and conductors to attrition during the pandemic. After hiring no new employees for 16 months, it is now in the process of adding 200 new workers, said a spokesman, Jason Abrams. |
Transit jobs have traditionally been "good" jobs — secure even when the economy sours. But the pandemic highlighted the risks of working on a train or bus as opposed to working in relative safety at home. At least 173 M.T.A. workers have died from Covid, according to the agency. |
"If you have a choice — and you do have choices right now because so many employers are having trouble finding people — you might want to pick something safer and less physically strenuous," said Ruth Milkman, a sociology professor at the City University of New York. |
For transit agencies, hiring is complicated by requirements for licenses or test-based certifications that involve experience — New Jersey Transit bus drivers, who start at $22.20 per hour, must have a commercial driver's license. |
Such requirements can limit the pool of qualified applicants, said Nicole Smith, a research professor and chief economist for Georgetown University's Center on Education and the Workforce. New Jersey Transit is so desperate that it is offering bonuses of $6,000 to applicants with commercial driver's licenses. |
Even when transit agencies find qualified workers, Smith added, it can take months to train them. "As much as everyone wants to get this done in weeks or a couple of months," she said, "it's going to take a couple of years." |
Enjoy a partly sunny day in the mid-40s and a mostly cloudy evening. There is a chance of showers in the wee hours of the night. |
In effect until Dec. 8 (Immaculate Conception). |
Alice Sebold apologizes for an innocent man's rape conviction |
Alice Sebold, the best-selling author of the memoir "Lucky" and the novel "The Lovely Bones," apologized to a man who was wrongly convicted of raping her 40 years ago after she identified him in court. Sebold posted a statement on the website Medium that said she regretted that she had "unwittingly" played a part in "a system that sent an innocent man to jail." |
The apology came a week after conviction of the man, Anthony Broadwater, was vacated by a state court judge in Syracuse, N.Y., where Sebold was raped when she was a freshman at Syracuse University. Broadwater, who spent 16 years in prison before being released on parole in 1998, told my colleague Karen Zraick that he was "relieved and grateful" for Sebold's apology. |
Supervised injection sites for drug users |
Two centers that have long run needle exchange programs for drug users became supervised injection sites on Tuesday, meaning that there is a room where someone can shoot up while a trained staff member stands by with medication to reverse an overdose. By early afternoon, the two centers had saved the lives of two people who overdosed, officials said, one at the center in East Harlem, the other at a similar facility in Washington Heights. |
The city authorized the two centers in an effort to bring down overdose deaths from increasingly potent street drugs, including fentanyl. The centers will make New York the first city in the United States to open supervised injection sites, as such centers are commonly known — facilities that supporters say offer a less punitive and more effective approach to coping with addiction. Opponents assail injection sites as magnets for drug abuse. |
"We feel a deep conviction and also sense of urgency," said Dr. Dave Chokshi, the city's health commissioner, noting that someone dies of a drug overdose in New York City every four hours and that 2020 was the deadliest year on record for overdoses, both nationally and in New York. |
For World AIDS Day, a candlelight observance |
 | | Othoniel Studio |
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Today is World AIDS Day — 40 years and five months after The Times's first story about AIDS, then so new it did not have a name. Today is also the fifth anniversary of the dedication of the New York City AIDS Memorial. |
This afternoon the memorial will present "Words of Remembrance," a poetry reading led by New Yorkers who are living with H.I.V., followed by a candlelight vigil. The candlelight will come from 250 votive candles designed by the French sculptor Jean-Michel Othoniel. |
Dave Harper, the memorial's executive director, said he had approached Othoniel about creating art for a fund-raising project. "Jean-Michel asked that we help him create a tribute to those lost by having 250 handblown votives made in his design and etched with the words 'I believe in fairies," Harper said. "He wanted to do something that was cheap or free, and we went with free to allow anyone who comes to the event to take something with them." |
In the early 1970s, I was a new teacher going to grad school two nights a week. I would ride the subway home from work, take a short nap, have a quick meal and then drive 15 minutes to Queens College, where I would begin to look for a parking space. Finding one was always a challenge. |
One evening, after circling and circling to no avail, I saw a Dodge Dart trying to squeeze into a space that was way too small for it, but just the right size for my tiny Mercury Capri. |
I pulled up behind the Dodge and waited for the woman who was driving it to give up and leave. |
But she kept trying, pulling out and backing in from different angles and approaches, and refusing to accept that the space was simply too small for her car. |
Finally, after waiting several minutes, and with my class starting soon, I poked my head out of the window. |
"Come on," I shouted, "you can't get in that space!" |
"Not with you watching me, I can't!" she shouted back. |
Our story yesterday about new electric transmission lines described incorrectly one of the investors in a transmission line and the way the real estate developer Related could benefit from new energy credits generated by the line's operation. The investor is EnergyRE, an affiliate of Related, not Related itself. And Related could reduce the impact of new penalties for its buildings' energy use by purchasing credits on the market, not by receiving and selling them. |
Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B. |
Melissa Guerrero, Rick Martinez and Olivia Parker contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@nytimes.com. |
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