Top transit brass admitted yesterday to a slew of screw-ups in handling the Christmas blizzard — and said they’re creating a new, ramped-up level of storm prep that could pre-emptively shut down parts of subway lines to remove snow and ice.
“Mistakes were made, no question about that,” said MTA CEO Jay Walder after his team handed the board a presentation on how they bungled the blizzard.
Meanwhile, in preparation for the snowfall expected overnight, subways and buses plan to run normal schedules Thursday morning, while Metro-North and LIRR riders will see some delays and canceled trains, the MTA said.
Walder also balked when asked if his agency lost money when it failed to put the highest-level storm plan into effect until the last minute.
“Is it possible we incurred additional costs? I don’t know if we’d ever be able to size it up in that way,” he said.
Walder said the agency would add yet another winter emergency plan that would prepare riders when segments of subway and bus lines had to be canceled to facilitate snow removal. It’s known as “Plan 5” — before, the highest protocol was “Plan 4” when there’s more than 6 inches of snow — and it hasn’t been put in to place for today’s snowfall.
“Occasionally we have storms that are much more extreme and that are likely in some way going to involve the suspension of services,” he said. “The question of stopping service is a greater question for lines in the outdoors.”
During the Christmas blizzard, several lines in southern Brooklyn were shuttered as snow drifts overwhelmed tracks.
The new plan also calls for the MTA to alert riders – through e-mail, signage, and on the Web — that line segments may be shut down.
In the presentation, MTA Chief Operating Officer Charles Monheim criticized the subway and bus because they failed to “quickly adapt to deteriorating conditions” which led to “stuck trains and under-estimation of stranded customer issues.”
He was partly referencing three A-trains that were trapped on the elevated lines near the Rockaways for up to eight hours.
Also, he said the bus system’s failure to cut service down led to scores of coaches getting caught on unplowed streets.
But board members — many of whom are frequent critics of the MTA — failed to criticize or deeply question management’s handing of the storm response.