Subway Chief's Twitter Q&A Fails To Impress Cranky Commuters

NEW YORK, NY — The new subway chief's inaugural online chat with straphangers looked much like the MTA's Twitter feed on a given day — a plethora of angry tweets, a handful of friendly ones and lots of unanswered questions.

Andy Byford, the newly minted president of New York City Transit, held his first Twitter Q&A Thursday morning to solicit feedback and answer questions about the struggling subway system he oversees. Riders submitted hundreds of questions and comments using the #AskNYCT hashtag, which was trending on Twitter at one point Thursday.

Byford personally responded to more than 40 tweets using the MTA's official @NYCTSubway account on topics ranging from the system's struggling signals and other infrastructure to homeless people on trains and the impending L train shutdown.

But many riders weren't impressed with responses that they thought ducked the questions and lacked enough information.

"Almost every #AskNYCT answer has been a really dry ass 'we're gonna do this but it'll take a while'," user @CaliKapowski tweeted.

Byford plans to hold monthly Twitter chats dedicated to different topics as he tries to increase communication and transparency at the helm of the nation's busiest subway system. Sarah Meyer, New York City Transit's new chief customer officer, joined him in answering questions Thursday.

Straphangers used the forum to gripe about longstanding problems on the rails, including delays, unintelligible announcements, filthy stations and cars, and a lack of accessibility for disabled riders.

Byford expressed sympathy with the riders — he doesn't own a car and takes the subway himself. He said MTA Chairman Joe Lhota's $836 million Subway Action Plan is addressing some of those problems now by cleaning stations and trains and catching up on a "huge backlog of maintenance."

In several responses, Byford emphasized the importance of revamping the subway's decades-old signals, which he said affects the system's reliability.

"Since day one, I've said that the most critical project is to completely resignal the subway, and I am pressing for funds to do just that," he wrote in one tweet.

But Byford gave vague answers on some topics, including the exorbitant costs of subway construction projects that outpace other big cities, as a New York Times investigation found.

Several straphangers on Twitter appeared frustrated when Byford said it would "take time" to fix certain problems, such as long waits for MetroCard refunds and replacing the failing signals, without giving clear timelines.

"I don't understand why you can't be more specific. WHEN?" a commuter named Kicy wrote in reply to Byford's answer about a plan to speed up MetroCard refunds. "What's a 'bit of time'. If you're already working on this then I would imagine you have a plan."

Some people argued the hour and a half Byford spend tweeting could have been better spent working on a plan to fix the subway's real problems. One user, Jef Taylor, called the Q&A an "empty PR gestur(e)."

But Byford defended the digital town hall.

"This is the job," he wrote. "I believe that being accessible and responsive to customers is a key part of making the system better. In my ten weeks here, I have focused my time on tangible actions to improve things."

A handful of riders seemed to agree with Byford and praised him for making an effort to hear commuters' concerns directly.

"This kind of public engagement is a step in the right direction for @NYCTSubway, and it's only the first instance," Stewart Mader, the chairman of the PATH Riders Council, tweeted. "They're listening."

Danny Pearlstein, a spokesman for the transit advocacy group Riders Alliance, said the conversation showed how engaged riders have become since the subway crisis hit its peak last year. State lawmakers should heed that engagement as they negotiate a final state budget this week, he said.

"We’re hoping that inspires Albany to act in a way that it hasn’t before" to help the state-controlled MTA fix the subways, Pearlstein said.

(Lead image: Photo via Shutterstock)