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An MTA employee who accidentally pressed a button “most likely” caused massive disruption of metro service for hours on several lines last month, an external investigation ordered by Governor Kathy Hochul has revealed.
The reports, conducted by two engineering companies, found that the power outage at the New York City Transit Rail Control Center was caused by a manual shutdown switch on one of the building’s power distribution units, according to a press release from the governor. .
The results suggest that the emergency push button may have been pressed in error because a plastic protector designed to prevent its accidental activation was missing, according to the summary of the investigation.
“Two outside engineering companies, HDR and WSP, were tasked with investigating and determining a root cause, and discovered that the failure was due to human error,” the governor’s office said.
The error at the end of last month resulted in a shutdown and prolonged disruption of service on lines 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and L.
The governor on Friday promised to consolidate debts in a bid to prevent similar service closures from happening again.
“New Yorkers deserve absolute confidence in a fully functioning subway system, and it is our duty to restore that confidence,” Hochul said in a statement. “I also ask the MTA to review all operations control centers throughout the system to identify any other potential weaknesses and provide assurance that such a situation does not happen again.
“We will provide the modernization, upgrades and reliability that riders deserve. “
MTA interim chairman Janno Lieber said the MTA’s initial conclusions immediately after the disruption – that the back-up electrical system had failed – turned out to be incorrect.
In fact, the back-up systems worked, but the “building systems” of the MTA’s dispatch center, known as the Rail Control Center, died, according to Lieber. Someone pressed the wrong button in an attempt to restart these systems, and the RCC lost its ability to communicate with running trains.
“It appears that a button was accidentally pressed when it was not supposed to be pressed,” Lieber said at an independent press conference on Friday. “I have to say that I am deeply disappointed with this and I say to our customers: this cannot happen. The Rail Control Center is the holy of holies of the metro.
According to the HDR report, the 84-minute blackout was caused by “an inadequate maintenance organizational structure at the RCC” as well as a “lack of an appropriate power distribution monitoring system”.
The WSP probe found that the shutdown was “very likely” due to the “manually activated emergency stop button”. The firm could not conclude whether the button was pressed intentionally or by mistake because there is no video surveillance system.
The reports come after two subway trains got stuck on August 29 in the Harlem River Tunnel when a power outage caused service on several lines to be disrupted, leaving hundreds of passengers to evacuate. A Brooklyn-bound 2 train and a northbound 3 train were passing through the tunnel at around 10:40 p.m. when a power outage at the Rail Control Center interrupted service, sources previously said.
A total of 150 people were evacuated from train 2 southbound and 250 were evacuated from train 3 northbound, the sources said.
The next day, Hochul pledged to shed light on an “unprecedented system failure” that caused a five-hour delay in metro service and an hour of complete shutdown of several lines.
State Senator Leroy Comrie (D-Brooklyn) said Hochul’s swift turnaround in the investigation was a breath of fresh air, given the disgraced ex-governor. The frequent blame rejection and evasion of Andrew Cuomo’s administration.
“The fact that she quickly reversed the report shows that she wants to see it holistically and I commend her for that,” he told The Post. “It shows that there was a higher level of cooperation from the MTA with the governor’s office – which is a big change from the previous administration, where they tried to work their way together. times. “
Lisa Daglian of the MTA’s Citizen Advisory Committee praised the Hochul team for promptly releasing the findings of the investigations, saying straphangers should be comforted by the governor’s “quick and strong” response.
“To their credit, they didn’t release this at 5 pm on a Friday. They released it once the results were known and the review was done quickly, ”Daglian said.
“Runners need to be assured that the quick review and firm response is a sign of firm hands that are ready to get them where they want to go and find out the root causes of delays when they don’t. “
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