MTA to change bus Radio Transmissions despite FCC warning, raising safety concerns

The MTA plans to move city bus radio transmissions into the same bandwidth as that of the Fire Department and EMS, despite a federal order that warns about possible interference with first responders, the Daily News has learned.

A recently approved $202 million contract with Parsons Transportation relies on a type of radio system the Federal Communications Commission bans from use on the so-called “public safety” bandwidth.

The FCC found that the technology that Parsons uses — called TETRA — could potentially interfere with public-safety radio calls.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is making this move to replace what it calls a “technologically obsolete” system of analog bus radios, which for 25 years has operated on a nonpublic-safety radio spectrum.

MTA sees spike in reports of sexual abuse on subways

City straphangers are grabbing onto more than just poles.

With victims encouraged by police and transit officials to come forward, sex abuse complaints in the city’s transit system skyrocketed in 2015 as cops saw a rise in reports about creeps groping, molesting and grinding up against vulnerable women riders in packed subway cars, the Daily News has learned.

 

The city ended 2015 with a nearly 33% increase in sex abuse cases on the rails — from 98 in 2014 to 130, according to documents obtained by the Daily News.

There was also a 25% jump in forcible touching cases — from 272 in 2014 to 340 — and a 9.3% increase in public lewdness cases, where men are found pleasuring themselves on the train.