Here’s something that may (not) shock you: One in Four Payphones in Subway Stations Does Not Fully Work, Survey Finds
No, really? I admit I was surprised. I would have said one in four is on the optimistic side. Of course, I don’t pick them up to see if there is a dial tone. After all, have you seen the pay phones lately. There are life forms growing on some and substances of suspicious origin on others.
Still, if they say one in four – I’ll take their word for it. I only hope they didn’t spend a great deal of time conducting this survey. A quick glance would have been sufficient. So it wasn’t the overall finding that struck me when I read it as much as it was this:
Verizon’s current contract with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority does not require any minimum number of payphones be kept in working order. Previous contracts called for 95% of phones to be “fully operative and in service at all times.” But language changed in 2005 reads: “[Verizon] shall exercise good-faith effort to clear 95% of all known troubles within 24 hours.”
* bold is mine for emphasis.
Well then – I guess that answers the question about why more of them haven’t been fixed since the last survey.
Seriously? No minimum? None? Who at Verizon is blowing who at the MTA? If you don’t mind my asking (and even if you do). And if anyone with a background in contact law could give me a firmer idea of good-faith means other than “we answered the call about it being broken, didn’t we? And you can’t prove we didn’t” – I’d love that.
Upon further reflection, this makes even less sense considering that the phones are a steady source of income for the city (well, not the phones themselves but the ad space on them) – the city would be more interested in making the phones more interesting (read: functional) to users/riders/citizens.
Not that I often find myself in need of a payphone at the station (I wander over to the stairs and use my own phone if it comes to that) but if they continue to not work, it will add volume to the cacophony of cries for using cell phones in the subway and THAT will annoy me more than anything else.
2 responses so far ↓
1 Ryan wrote on Jul 21, 2009 at 12:27 pm
It doesn’t surprise me that the payphones are just being left to die. The city probably doesn’t see the profit in maintaining the phones.
2 Deborah wrote on Jul 21, 2009 at 8:38 pm
Oh I’m not surprised either. I was just sort of surprised someone took the time to do anything as formal as a survey and report about something so obvious that nothing will be done about in any case.
Not unlike when a study was done last year that concluded – shocking no one – that subway stations were dirty.
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