The Wreck of the New York Subways (Newsreel #47) (circa 1970, sound)

the Subways are built to take people to work and it's you know like I I I feel like I'm a prisoner at work a prisoner on the subway a prisoner in this filthy City I'm getting nothing I'm working I'm getting drained I was Fair increase affected you it hasn't you don't find yourself being able to buy less things now no I never could buy anything anyway oh I well I got to go place and have no choice have I got a choice I have a choice now that the fair is going up it's like just adding to my expenses to pay 30 cents 60 cents a day and if I want to go somewhere I want to meet with some people then it costs me you know like a120 a day just to move around you know that really really adds up I feel trapped I mean what do we do for the city we do a lot we keep it moving you know if if it wasn't for the people who worked there would be nothing but they don't do anything for us they just take and take and take and one way of seeing that is from the subway the hell we have to go through to get to work and to get home again so we're like packed in there and uh I mean I go to work in the rush hour in the morning and uh I mean it's hard not only isn't there a place to sit but I mean there's not even place to stand I mean it just gets squashed all over the place and the noise in the subway not only does it seem unbearable it's been medically proven that it's unbearable that the level of noise in the Subways is so high that it causes mental illness for one thing for another thing it actually causes deafness it causes deafness to to workers who are in the subway and it causes deafness to people who ride the Subways every day I just can't stand it and now it's summertime is here you know I ride I ride the IRT Lexington Avenue and it's so hot that it's hot in the morning but at night after work when the heat builds up it's just devastating I get home from work and I'm totally exhausted it just kills me to ride on that leam it must be 120° and you know I I just there's no other way for me to get to work and and you have all these all these ads that make you think you know well if I don't have bad breath maybe the guy next to me does and you really it almost makees sure you get to hate people you almost want to blame somebody and I guess that that we we make a big mistake in in blaming the wrong people and blaming the people who were standing next to us and the people who were you know just as miserable as we are something's got to be done in January 1970 the transit authority raised the subway fair in New York City from 20 to 30 cents a ride the reason given by the transit authority was that they needed the fair increase due to the new wage contract which they just negotiated with their workers the increase in the salaries of the workers amounted only to 6% while the fair went up 50% wage increase that is coming to us is necessary to in order for men to live to support their families what have you naturally wages have to go up because the cost of living is going up when the city needs money to construct new Subways and and to fix up old ones what they do is have municipal bonds and most of the people who buy these bonds are banks because they're all in a minimum of a $5,000 denomination a bond is sort of like a savings bond if we buy a savings bond we give money to the government so that they can use it and then we get it returned to us after a certain number of years with interest and that's what happens with a municipal Bond the bank lends the city money in return knowing that they're going to get the money back in a certain number of years plus interest yet one thing that's better about these bonds than savings bonds is that the banks don't have to pay any tax on the money that they're loaning to the city but then the city has to pay back the banks and they don't have any money because if they did they wouldn't have to borrow money from the banks in the first place so what they do is come back to the people and raise taxes so that we pay for the municipal bonds for the municipal bonds which are used to finance the construction of the Subways and for the municipal bonds which are used for every other city project we have to pay for the Subways when we ride them and we have to pay for them even if we don't ride them the TA is just a small scale on what this country or the system is perpetrating on the people taking money from you and challenge into other areas where you never see it again most of the politicians I'd say at least 95% of them they'll take a position in favor of these these bonding programs when they leave their constituents and they go back to Aly or wherever they always wind up voting for the bank the bankers they went to get the great deal of the money out out of those [Music] bondings the reason that they charge so much money to ride the Subways is that they have to spend so much on interest which they have to pay back to the banks which lent them the money in the first place last year it amounted to over $140 million in interest alone that's $140 million more that the transit authority would have had to maintain the Subways we've been paying enough interest to buy the subways twice and we still haven't begun to pay back the original loan so I think that the people just have to understand that the bonding is not the answer to them the bonding is the major reason why they're getting the hosing that they're getting some time ago the people in New York City voted for a 500 million dollar bonding for a second avient subway now uh that uh bonding was approved by the legislature and the the bonds were granted there was no billing of the second Amy Subway so people on the Lower East Side as well as other parts of the city still have to pay two fairs to get to [Music] work according to the law which set up the transit authority the transit authority repairs old cars while the city must buy new ones the transit authority however does not repair the old car cars in order to save money then the city has to buy new ones and they get the money to do that by raising taxes I work for cars and shops and the repairs the transit authority fails to do this preventive maintenance that we had once before don't want to fix the old ones and they using the very little stock that they have in hand they stripping other cars in the yard to replace this they wait until a train is no longer capable are moving practically they'll send that train out as long as you can move you're lucky to go to the end of the ride I don't have my wife and kids ride those trains they're unsafe I don't like to ride them myself and the crews don't want to take these trains but we have to take these trains as it is but then we pull into a station what happens the door hangs up now I have to take at least five at least five minutes to go find that door meanwhile service is starting to back up on back up behind me now the rid in public looks at me it's like it's my fault that this door is hanging up that I'm holding them up in reality it's not me I'm there to operate the trains not really to maintain I have had trains that I have rote up as being an opal as far as doors and guard lights and dead Motors what have you and I see that same train back on the road tomorrow the next day these trains pulling up AP between the rockaways and Brooklyn very frequently now and there's more people getting hurt every day the derailment at 180 Street where 52 people were hurt that was switch trouble this is WW news up to the minute Ray Rice reported during this morning's Rush Hour an empty train slammed into the side of a manhattan-bound GG train near Roosevelt Avenue two people were killed and more than 50 were injured some of them critically Stanley d'oran of Jamaica as student was on his way to school he told Mike E grow what happened well we were riding and a train just hit us and like there was all sorts of dust and we're tumbling and like first thing when chain stop I was outside of the train I was thrown out you were thrown out of the train to the CH and what happened then well I was able to get up but my friend's foot was caught like I was trying to help him and finally two conductors came over and help them out as usual the TA is laying the blame on a worker not their poor equipment and they'll probably get away with it because the motorman is black the TA should be the ones to to be held responsible the public should know that the TA is the one that they should be looking to with with the bad eye because they are put the trains out there that you are riding on but the public was aware when they see a train is in bad service they shouldn't even ride this train themselves they should demand that this train be taken out you should be aware that you go to J Street and knock on their door because they are the ones who are keeping the maintenance at a low level when the final answers are in you get the bonding your service gets worse your complaints fall on death a so you have to find another way and you're not going to find that way through the politician the subway should be free because this city functions because of a transit system all the industry in the city benefits because of the transit system and the city at this point the real estate businesses in this city at this point are paying less less than half of what they paid in 1937 and 1938 toward their share of the responsibility of government and the figures don't lie if you're going to have a viable society and everybody claims they want that well then the people that benefit the most from the city and are able to pay because they benefit the most just have to pay their share and they're not paying their share the workers the transit workers are subsidized in the Subways the people that ride them are subsidized and Subway but the transit system isn't designed for us you can't get from Queens to the bronks by Subway the system is set up by the politicians and big businessmen to get us to work and to make money for the bankers Rockefeller appoints the MTA to Fork over fat and Trust payments to the bond holders like rockefeller's Chase Manhattan bank so to keep the profits flowing to the bankers they stick us with poor Subways and high fairs it's just like the telephones Gas and Electric the rates go up and the service gets worse a few years ago there was a Fair increase in Italy the people answered it by joining with the transit workers in a general work stoppage the fair was lowered 2 days later yeah the only way we're going to get out of this uh Transit mess as if the uh the riding public unites with the workers I mean we're the ones who have to start thinking about ourselves because right now nobody else is one thing that happened after the after the fair increase was that a group of us decided not to pay the fair and we decided the hell with it we we opened up the gates the exit gates we told people to come on through we refused to pay the fair we went under the turn Styles and it was really a great exhilarating feeling we were taking control and an awful lot's going to happen in New York before the people actually have control of it maybe that's it before the people actually have control of it but we started the subway action was really a big start New York want to know who wrecked our subway trains the ones we thought that ran so well and now who can we blame we want to know who raised the Fairway up to 30 cents cuz what it cost to ride each year would pay for 3 months rent but now we're up against it and we to seen up against the only that we do the best we can and fight to put the Subways into the people's hands now I could be a banker without the least excuse but look at the transit authority and tell me what's the use they loot us each year for 141 million bucks the bonds were issued in interest paid and now we're in tough luck but now we're up against it and we' got to raise around of all the times I've ever seen we're sure up against it now the only thing that we can do is do the best we can and fight to put the Subways into the people's hands the big shots blame the workers and cry to you and me while they dish out the interest completely taxfree they soaked up all the profits till they didn't do so well they pretended tell us back the trains and Subways went to hell but now we're up against it long I've ever seen against it now the only that we can do is best we and fight [Music] country