Ban on pooping

https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/ny-defecation-ban-mta-subway-transit-20200922-43tyo2euwjduhprvdvtq7nbbga-story.html?fbclid=IwAR3PodqWylMEWFF88_IGEGD9Ro5fyIgKCtL3rbVTiJWv9f4RJ51v4WSmwiI

MTA board to formally ban pooping in subways and buses
By Clayton Guse
New York Daily News |
Sep 22, 2020 at 6:31 PM

That you’re not supposed to do this should go without saying — but MTA bosses believe they need a rule explicitly banning defecating on the subway.

The new rule is on the agenda for an MTA meeting Wednesday. The rule will ban defecating on the city’s subways, buses and transit facilities.

Transit rules previously mandated $100 fines for straphangers who “create a nuisance, hazard, or unsanitary condition (including, but not limited to, spitting or urinating).”

Creating an “unsanitary condition” surely includes pooping — but MTA officials think they have to be more specific.

Transit workers have for decades griped about destitute straphangers soiling train cars and buses with human waste.

On Sept. 7 a train operator was reportedly “soiled with bodily fluid from a customer” at the L line’s Eighth Ave. terminal in Manhattan, according to an internal MTA incident report.

“The fact that the MTA has to pass a rule against defecating in a subway car says a lot about the environment we work in down there,” said Transport Workers Union Local 100 president Tony Utano. “We don’t ride for 20 minutes and go upstairs. We’re down there for entire shifts.”

“A rule is nice,” Utano added. “A more visible police presence on platforms and trains would be even better.”

Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials in April implemented new emergency rules in response to the COVID-19 pandemic that included the poop ban, as well as ones that barred passengers from taking large shopping carts on trains and required riders to exit subway cars at the final stop of each line.

The 60-day emergency rules were renewed in July — and now the MTA board is to vote to formally make the rules, including the poop ban, permanent agency policy.