The MTA sometimes uses regular subway trains that transport passengers to also move bags of stinking garbage collected from the tracks by work crews, the Daily News has learned.
A transit worker told The News he's seen passengers sharing cars with small mountains of garbage in orange plastic bags several times over the last several months.
"I've seen stacks of bags, leaking, blocking the doorway, blocking seats," the transit worker said. "It may be 3 a.m. or 4 a.m. in the morning, but this is New York City. There's always people on the train."
A photograph taken early one morning last week shows at least a dozen orange bags stacked at one end of a car on the No. 6 line. There are no passengers in the photograph - probably because they're so disgusted, the transit worker said.
"They will look at it like, 'What are they doing?' " he said. "You see people picking up their feet because it will leak down the train."
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has launched an investigation.
"It is not our practice to use in-service trains for trash removal," the MTA said in a statement released yesterday.
Trash picked up from tracks adjacent to stations is usually stacked in so-called "wide areas" located in tunnels just outside stations, the transit worker said.
But if there isn't such a storage area outside a station, crews will board regular trains and take it to a nearby station that does have a "wide area," the worker said.
Typically, trash collected from platforms is kept in storage rooms or metal bins until picked up by one of the the MTA's refuse trains.
John Samuelsen, president of Transport Workers Union Local 100, said workers apparently are being directed to use regular trains to move the garbage, which he called an "insult to all riders." He said the bags can contain rats looking for a meal.
"To bring those bags on passenger trains and expose riders to potential of rats jumping out of the bags is outrageous," Samuelsen said. "When track workers walk past those bags, we give them a wide berth, knowing if you walk close to a bag, a rat could jump out right on top of you."
A photograph taken early one morning last week shows at least a dozen orange bags stacked at one end of a car on the No. 6 line. There are no passengers in the photograph - probably because they're so disgusted, the transit worker said.
"They will look at it like, 'What are they doing?' " he said. "You see people picking up their feet because it will leak down the train."
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has launched an investigation.
"It is not our practice to use in-service trains for trash removal," the MTA said in a statement released yesterday.
Trash picked up from tracks adjacent to stations is usually stacked in so-called "wide areas" located in tunnels just outside stations, the transit worker said.
But if there isn't such a storage area outside a station, crews will board regular trains and take it to a nearby station that does have a "wide area," the worker said.
Typically, trash collected from platforms is kept in storage rooms or metal bins until picked up by one of the the MTA's refuse trains.
John Samuelsen, president of Transport Workers Union Local 100, said workers apparently are being directed to use regular trains to move the garbage, which he called an "insult to all riders." He said the bags can contain rats looking for a meal.
"To bring those bags on passenger trains and expose riders to potential of rats jumping out of the bags is outrageous," Samuelsen said. "When track workers walk past those bags, we give them a wide berth, knowing if you walk close to a bag, a rat could jump out right on top of you."
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