NYC Subway Conductors Need High-Tech to Detect and Summon Police

 

Dear Editor,

On July 16 at approximately 11:10 a.m., I was traveling on a downtown A-train. Somewhere around 23rd Street, the conductor came on the loudspeaker and said, “If anyone from the NYPD is on this train, please come to the conductor area.”  She said it again.

I immediately thought some emergency was in progress and imagined what I should do if gunshots rang out. I debated whether to get out at the next station, 14th Street, and decided to do so. Everyone on the train, which was very crowded, was calm. Even I was calm, though I imagined the worst.

I got off at 14th Street and the train remained in the station as I climbed up the stairs and out into the street. I have no idea what happened afterward.

So here we have a situation in the technological age where the following exists: an MTA conductor has no high-tech way to immediately link to a central number that could tell her if a cop is on her train, either to MTA central or to police central, or wherever; and the conductor is forced to inform riders that she has no idea whether a cop is on the train, therefore alerting everyone, including to a possible perpetrator, that help is not available.

GPS systems created by Apple and Amazon, to name a few, can find my location using signals from my iPhone  — but the conductor of a train with hundreds of people has no way of knowing whether a cop is on her train or not?

Wouldn’t you say something is wrong here?

 

Concerned Subway Rider