Rats Invade Subway While MTA Chases Its Tail

TWU: Rats Invade Subway While MTA Chases Its Tail

• ‘IT’S ABOUT TIME’

  

  The Chief-Leader/Michel Friang

  ‘IT’S ABOUT TIME’: Local 100 Steward and Train Conductor Scott Harris collected signatures from riders at the Jamaica Center subway terminal. One woman, while signing the petition urging the MTA to deal with the growing rat problem, said, ‘For real, one ran across my foot!’

Posted: Monday, September 26, 2011 5:00 pm | Updated: 4:55 pm, Mon Sep 26, 2011.

By FLORA FAIR |

A straphanger was bitten by a rat on a subway platform earlier this month, and transit workers say that unless the Metropolitan Transportation Authority takes action, it won’t be the last time.

The young woman said she was waiting for the J train at the Chambers Street station during morning rush hour when the rat scurried out from under a bench and bit her foot. But the problem, according to Transport Workers Union Local 100 officials, isn’t a rogue rodent—it’s the increasing aggression of a growing rat population in the city’s subway stations, exacerbated by conditions that the union has repeatedly asked the MTA to fix.