Federal Transit Administration sets minimum safety rules for track workers

Federal transit regulators announced new safety rules for track workers Tuesday, marking the first time the Federal Transit Administration has instituted minimum safety rules for the nation’s transit agencies.

“This is FTA’s first safety regulation establishing minimum safety standards that transit agencies would be required to adopt,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told reporters Tuesday. “These transit workers perform vital and often dangerous work to ensure that subways, light rail and streetcars stay moving so that millions of Americans can get to work or school or wherever they need to be.”

“This rule is coming after too many tragedies — 29 workers killed and 144 workers seriously injured since 2008,” Buttigieg said.

The rule, which is set to be formally published in the Federal Register on Thursday, will require any transit agency that receives federal funding to abide by the FTA’s safety guidelines.

That includes “minimum program elements including a road-worker protection manual, job safety briefings, redundant protections, and even includes a good-faith safety challenge that workers can implement,” FTA’s deputy administrator Veronica Vanterpool said.

The safety challenge would allow workers to push back on an assignment that they feel is unsafe.

The rule also requires the development of a training program for all on-track workers.

An MTA spokeswoman told the Daily News Tuesday that New York City Transit — the portion of the agency that oversees subways and buses and would be affected by the rule — already has a robust worker safety program in place, citing the agency’s training programs and safety briefings. The MTA has mandatory training and refresher programs for anyone with access to tracks, including contractors.

“Safety is the MTA’s No. 1 priority,” agency spokeswoman Laura Cala-Rauch told the Daily News, adding “New York City Transit is reviewing the FTA’s proposed regulations.”

John Samuelsen, the international president of the Transport Workers Union, whose Local 100 represents MTA subway workers, welcomed the rule.

“This is a massive step forward for safety,” he said. “President Joe Biden and DOT are telling transit agencies across the USA their top priority must be protecting critically important workers.”

The FTA in August issued a pair of so-called “special directives,” ordering the MTA to improve its safety procedures and the state’s Public Transportation Safety Board to step up its oversight of New York City Transit after “an escalating pattern of safety incidents” affecting MTA transit workers.

The regulators specifically referenced two recent high profile incidents previously reported by the Daily News — the November 2023 death of track worker Hilarion Joseph, who was struck by a D train while working on the tracks near Herald Square, and a June incident in which an unidentified track worker was sent to the ICU with head trauma after being hit by an F train near Bergen St. in Brooklyn.

Both men were working as “flaggers,” tasked with alerting train operators to their work crew’s presence, when they were struck.