MTA Chairman Joe Lhota wants the agency to fix a major flaw in its sleep-apnea rules, which allow bus and train operators suspected of having the potentially deadly condition to work for up to three months before getting treatment.
Under current union rules, a worker who drives a train or bus can go right back to work after failing a screening for having the condition, and then they have 90 days to get an official diagnosis from a doctor and start treatment.
Lhota says that’s too long to work untreated with the disease that causes sufferers to pause in breathing while asleep and can cause them to suddenly pass out during waking hours.
“I would like to see it done as fast as it can,” said Lhota, who blamed the long lag time on union rules.
The union declined to comment.
The operators of the New Jersey Transit train that crashed in Hoboken last September and the Long Island Rail Road locomotive that crashed in Brooklyn in January were both found to have been suffering from sleep apnea, according to National Transportation Safety Board officials.
MTA officials also admitted Wednesday that they have so far only screened about half the 20,000 workers who fall under the mandatory requirement.