The city’s subways are about to get a lot slower.
The powerful union that reps MTA train operators is telling it members to dramatically slow down when entering stations, following the deaths of two people hit after being pushed onto the tracks.
The Transport Workers Union Local 100 is also asking the MTA to require trains to enter stations at 10 miles per hour.
They currently enter at about 30 to 40 miles per hour.
“Slow down, blow your horn and proceed with caution,” reads the flier that the TWU is distributing to train operators.
Slowdown Train2 by New York Post
“Preventing [someone’s death] and saving yourself the emotional trauma and potential loss of income that go with it, is worth a few extra minutes on your trip.”
The MTA said they have no plans to order train operators to slow down because it will lead to severely backed up service.
“If we would slow trains down we’d have fewer trips, more crowded trains and more crowded platforms,” said Charles Seaton, a spokesman for the MTA.
“Essentially you’d be trying to put the same amount of people on fewer trains.”
Entering at abnormally slow speeds also disrupts the signals system, sparking delays following trains, he said.
The agency is also suspicious of the union’s motives for the call for a slow down.
The TWU has been operating without a contract for a year.
In an email to the union, a top MTA negotiator warned the TWU not to encourage operators to slow down because it could be construed as a contract protest.
That would be a violation of the Taylor Law, which prohibits public employee unions from striking or slowing down service as part of contract negotiations.
TWU Local 100 president John Samuelsen said that this wasn’t about the contract, but straphanger safety.
jennifer.fermino@nypost.com.