By Gus Saltonstall
Last week, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority announced 15 new Customer Service Centers set for New York City subway stations, including two on the Upper West Side.
The pair of neighborhood stations that will get the centers by the end of the year are the 96th Street 1, 2, and 3 station, and the 59th Street Columbus Circle station.
The Customer Service Centers will include agent booths, retails outlets, enhanced accessibility options, OMNY technology, and a “more welcoming visual presentation” for customers that includes new lighting.
The Customer Service Centers will always be open and staffed by an agent, no matter the time or day.
“We’re making it even easier for customers to get assistance by meeting them where they are with new customer service centers coming to locations throughout the transit system,” said NYC Transit President Demetrius Crichlow, in a news release. “As we continue to transition to tap-and-ride, customers can easily transfer funds from MetroCards to OMNY at their nearest customer service center where knowledgeable station agents are there to help.”
As indicated by Crichlow’s statement, the new centers will be in part geared to assisting riders with the switch to OMNY, including those with Reduced-Fare MetroCards. You’ll also be able to submit complaints and receive updates on train delays at the centers.
There are already 15 Customer Service Centers operating at stations throughout the city, the first of which opened in 2023. Elsewhere in Manhattan, Times Square 42nd Street, Grand Central 42nd Street, 34th Street Penn Station, 125th Street, 168th Street, and Fulton Street already have the centers.
You can find out more — HERE.
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All really great, but I do hope they can also remove dangerous people from the stations and trains.
Why do we still have token booth clerks? They stopped doing their jobs 5 years ago. The MTA should just hire security guards.
They help customers who are having problems. When the machines don’t work. When you don’t know where you are going. When your card doesn’t work. The real problem is how many stations have no staff. The MTA police know absolutely nothing and do nothing, including not enforcing fare evasion (one lone guy is supposed to take on someone who jumped the turnstile? How?)
In my experience the staff in the booths are usually helpful and occasionally they’re not even rude. (Many are rude, though, I’ve found.)
Right!
Its called a union contract. They are now called customer service agents and supposed to be out of the booth to assist customers with any questions. They were given a handheld tablet to aid them. When was the last time you saw them actually out of the booth as required?
They stopped doing transactions due to C19 and they should go back to doing so, but MTA decided to double down on OHNY. You should note that going away with the metrocard is the weekly and monthly. Now after 12 trips in a week at 3.00 you ride free for the rest of the week,
But that will cost about $2.80 more a week per rider vs the cost of a $32 weekly metrocard. So the “average cost per ride” goes up and the MTA makes more
How about we recoup the nearly ONE billion they admit they lose in fare beating
Just last week I was assisted twice, at two different stations, by workers who left their booths to help me. Happy they are there, unlike at some stations where the booths were removed, along with the workers in them.
Verygood–and true.
“They are now called customer service agents and supposed to be out of the booth to assist customers with any questions.”
Robert, those are 2 different things I believe. The supposed customer service centers are separate from the mandate for agents to be outside of the booths. At least that’s how I understood it.
In name only, the folks formally known as token clerks were and are fighting for getting them out of the booth tooth and nail. As their union says this type of interaction is not in their job description
Watch for them to disappear at the end of their existing contract which is coincidentally the same day this pilot program is set to end as per mta
Why would the MTA need to hire security guards? The NYPD is in the stations, shouldn’t they be doing their jobs?
The MTA has already placed security people in some stations. I see them at 86th Street B/C station in the evenings, usually chit-chatting with each other or staring at their phones. If they are supposed to be some kind of crime deterrent, they are not very impressive. They have a very unprofessional air about them. Who knows, though, maybe they secretly know what they are doing.
Note that someone was robbed gunpoint at this station at 11am on October 15, so there’s that. https://www.amny.com/nyc-transit/gunpoint-robbery-manhattan-subway-station-10152025/
They are supposed to be a “visible deterrent” to fare beating. The MTA started this rather than enforcing the law after YOUR LOCAL ELECTED’s changed the laws to make it a civil offense with at most a 100 fine vs a criminal summons.
They have strict instructions not to confront folks and have no real ability to call central for NYPD.
Theft of service used to be enforced by NYPD as a criminal matter, and they ran everybody they summonsed for warrants etc. Then the city council decided that a formal policy of checking everybody that was summonsed was not fair.
They have no more power of arrest than you and I do: “citizen’s arrest.” And were someone to be “arrested” and fight it, it could cause Transit four thousand dollars to defend what? One fare?
They do. Bragg who you voted for lets them out.
Let’s vote out Bragg this November. Anyone with me?
I certainly am. Mamdani/ Bragg combo scares me.
Token booth clerks are in almost every station 24/7. I rarely see NYPD. The clerks do little to nothing everyday. Security guards at least would serve a purpose of keeping people safe and would cost much less. Right now it’s just a jobs program for token booth clerks.
actually these days a lot of stations have no token clerks.
I dunno—Candy Crush Saga won’t play itself.
Seriously!! Every cop looking straight down at their candy crush- I worry for their posture- I don’t want to foot that bill too
Hope the Service Center at 96th improves the gloom and grime of the current station entry area. I often see people asking questions at the token booth there, so making it more customer friendly would be a vast improvement.
(I wonder if the anti-turnstile jumping add-ons have been effective? The tall steel side things with jagged tops at least LOOK deterant!)
One could easily crawl under if you don’t mind a little dirt scuff on you trousers or knees!
I’ve seen countless people leap over those supposed barriers with ease – in front of uniformed people who totally ignore the fare beaters.
Yes, I agree.
retails outlets? ohhh, a CVS, Duanne Reade, and a bank. Just what we need!
When will the center on 59th Street open?
Hallelujah!
A week ago Tuesday, we were waiting for the elevator to the downtown platform at 72nd Street, and I saw 2 police officers standing by the stairs to the uptown platform laughing at something on their phones. I then looked over towards the turnstile, and saw a young girl blatantly bend down and walk under the turnstile without paying her fare. The officers looked at her, laughed, and went back to whatever was cracking them up on their cellular phones. Gotta say, I didn’t blame them as this was such a minor infraction. But a stern talking to would have probably made this young lady think again before trying to beat the system. Then again, the officers words would have gone in one ear and out the other, because this kind of disrespect for everything is the new world order.
If they do nothing people complain. If they do something people complain. I don’t understand why anyone would want to be a NYPD officer. I do understand why they do as little as possible in certain situations. If they spoke to this young lady and she filed a complaint they could lose their vacation time. They always assume the cop is the bad guy. Cops don’t to lise my vacation or get suspended because someone didn’t pay the subway fare or shoplifted.
Yesterday the MTA totally blocked the main entrance to the Columbus Circle station with no warning and an after the fact sign that says “closed through November”. The escalator has been out of service for almost 2 years. It’s such a busy station as is. The chaos last evening was epic. Why should anyone believe anything that the MTA says? And congestion pricing? Where do they get their stats? Midtown traffic is horrendous
Retails outlets at the #1-2-3 stop at 96th St? Really? Like the retail outlets at the 59th St. station? And where would that be?…. Beyond unnecessary.
The 72nd Street Station is in dire need of customer service. None of the card readers work so it is impossible to know if there is any money left on a Metro Card. I was having no luck swiping tne card so I asked the “customer service” person to help. She said there was no money on my card. I knew there was money on the card as I had recently added money to it. ( I am now switching from Metro Card to Omni but want to spend down the Metro Card first) so I found someone else who was able to verify there was actually $30 left on my Metro card. Many of the people working there find it a nuisance to provide customer service. This type of thing is the norm on West 72nd Street whee there are two subway service buildings. Instead of helping you the people working there delight in sending you back and forth from building to building to” get help” from someone else.
The Times Square customer care was no help at all in transferring my Metrocard to OMNY because they don’t have wifi (!).
Try the mobile metro card vans
Despite what the article says there isn’’t a Service Center at Grand Central. I was told I had to go to The Times Square station for a Service Center.
The OMNY system is pretty lousy in my opinion. And the customer service is terrible. I would elaborate but doing so would cause my blood pressure to spike. Oh how I miss subway tokens.
Many Metrocard machines no longer read credit cards. I had to add value with cash, which was very inconvenient.
Most stations in Manhattan have no machines to let you put money on farecards at all. They say OMNI starts in January, but they are making it very hard to keep using a farecard till then. And since free transfers to Yonkers and Nassau County buses ONLY work with farecards, not with OMNI, anyone using those buses HAS TO keep using the farecards.
I had to call 511 to find out where there was a station that would actually let me put money on my farecard, after traveling around to visit many stations, talking to a lot of the few remaining staff in the fare booths. (In case anyone needs it, you can still add money – using cash or credit card – at the downtown 1 stop at 125th St.)
This was totally unnecessary during the token era. Wasting collossal amounts of money. No one needs to “tap and ride.” Just drop a token in the slot. Have a clerk to sell tokens, and a newsstand, and restroom. That’s all!