MTA is hiring for jobs with no education requirements, experience

NEW YORK (PIX11) — Looking for a job with no education requirements or previous work experience?
If you are considering applying to be a bus operator for the MTA, the application process has just gotten slightly easier.
More Local News
The MTA is accepting online applications for bus operators until the end of April and has eliminated the requirement for a multiple-choice test, which previously stipulated a passing score of at least 70%.
The starting salary ranges from $26.19 to $27.79, depending on the location, which can increase to $37.42 after six years.
The MTA offers paid holidays, vacation, and sick leave, and a comprehensive medical and pension plan.
Applicants can access the online application here. All application fees will be waived. Those unable to apply online can obtain an electronic copy of the mail-in application package by emailing a request to examsunit@nyct.com.
After you submit your application, you will receive a random list number via email after the application period has closed.
NYC Public Schools is hiring school aides
Applicants will then be scheduled for employment processing in the order of their random list numbers. During this process, candidates will need to verify that they meet all the listed requirements.
At the time of appointment, applicants must either have a Class A or Class B Commercial Driver's License or a Learner's Permit for a Class B Commercial Driver's License.
More information is available on the MTA's website.
Ben Mitchell is a digital content producer from Vermont who has covered both local and international news since 2021. He joined PIX11 in 2024. See more of his work here.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

Politico

2 days ago

• Politico

America's biggest rail service faces peril from both parties after years of ‘Amtrak Joe' Biden

BENEATH THE EAST RIVER, New York — Twelve years after Hurricane Sandy's brackish floodwaters poured into some of the Northeast's busiest rail tunnels, the damage is still apparent from pooling water and crumbling casing. Political leaders who mattered most — from former President Joe Biden to the region's governors — all backed a $1.6 billion repair of the Amtrak tunnels connecting Manhattan and Long Island. But now Donald Trump is president and New York is taking a more adversarial approach to Amtrak. Even though repair work started last month on the Sandy-damaged tunnels beneath the East River, Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and members of her administration threw intense last-minute shade on the project. They suggested Amtrak cannot be trusted, doesn't care about its customers and compared its officials to a used car salesman. The sharp elbows suggest a new peril for the national railroad following the 'Amtrak Joe' Biden years, when the administration showered billions of dollars on the railroad and New York rail projects, including the separate $16 billion project to build new tunnels beneath the Hudson River connecting New Jersey and New York. Amtrak's leader recently stepped down in a peace offering to Trump and the railroad is facing major layoffs and renewed pressure to turn a profit. If Amtrak doesn't have the confidence of Northeastern Democrats like Hochul, whose state is home to the flagship New York Penn Station and its busiest passenger routes, it's not clear who Amtrak can count on. 'Am I confident?' Hochul said during a recent press conference. 'I don't know.' Hochul's recent criticism of the East River rehab, paired with open hostility toward Amtrak from officials at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, are yet another sore spot between the Democratic governor and the Trump administration over transit — one among many. Trump is trying to kill New York's signature congestion pricing program. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy recently seized control of the high-profile overhaul of Penn Station and handed it to Amtrak, under the supervision of former MTA head Andy Byford. But the tunnel clash adds animosity to what was once widely regarded as a slam dunk repair project by Amtrak to its own tunnels. Sandy flooded two of four East River train tunnels, leaving behind a salty residue that's eating away at the concrete casing. Since then, Amtrak has been working on a plan to fix the century-old tubes by closing them one after another for two-and-a-half years of repair work. The closures could prompt delays for Long Island commuters if something goes wrong in any of the other tunnels. Hochul worries those delays could shred public confidence in transit after the state is 'finally getting our footing.' 'The last thing I want to do is have a setback that can go on for years,' Hochul said. 'So I was very clear in my messaging to Amtrak: Don't screw this up.' As the tunnel repair project loomed, Hochul and the MTA asked Amtrak to rip up its closure plans and take a different approach known as 'repair in place,' which would shift the work to nights and weekends and keep the tunnels open during peak commuting times. In doing so, she and her allies have used rhetoric that would have been hard to imagine when Biden was president. 'Amtrak's track record for us is a little terrifying,' MTA CEO Janno Lieber said, citing unrelated problems with Amtrak's system that caused massive headaches for New Jersey commuters last summer. Lisa Daglian, the head of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA, cited a history of Amtrak system problems to suggest that if something went wrong with the East River tunnels, the 2017 'summer of hell' transit crisis in New York City would look like a 'warm spring day.' In New Jersey, Gov. Phil Murphy and members of the state's congressional delegation have expressed frustration with Amtrak, but for other reasons and in more muted terms. Murphy, a Democrat, stepped in to broker a peace between Amtrak and NJ Transit last summer after the two railroads got into a spat over who was to blame for massive delays for Garden State commuters. Now, every few months, Murphy gathers NJ Transit and Amtrak leaders in front of cameras to field reporters' questions about their joint work. Not so in New York. New York's criticism of Amtrak intensified shortly after Duffy announced in mid-April that it would be in charge of Penn Station, a move that sidelined the MTA and Lieber, who has his own particular vision for what should happen there. It's hard to know if the tunnel flare up aimed at Amtrak is part of a tit-for-tat, but it's a theory few people are discounting given that the MTA and Amtrak had been talking about the tunnel work for years. 'We were surprised by this sudden disavowment of a plan that we had worked together on for a long time,' said Laura Mason, Amtrak's executive vice president for capital project delivery. New York contends it has long harbored worries about Amtrak's plan to close one tunnel for 13 months of repairs, reopen it and then close the other for 13 more months. The East River tunnels are used by Amtrak, the MTA's Long Island Rail Road and NJ Transit, which sends trains to Queens so they can be ready to head back to New Jersey during rush hour. NJ Transit has not raised a ruckus over the tunnel project. But LIRR, which is part of the MTA, is the biggest user of the tunnels. And its leader, Rob Free, is worried because it sends more than 450 trains and 125,000 customers through them each day. In early May, Amtrak handed LIRR an easy anecdote to bash it with even before repairs began: Poor quality control meant one of the tunnels wasn't ready to go after an overnight outage, inconveniencing tens of thousands of Long Island commuters. If another tunnel had been closed for repair when that happened, there would have been even more delays and cancellations. 'The governor of New York seems to be more concerned about Amtrak customers than they do,' Free, the head of LIRR, said during a press conference in remarks that echoed Hochul's own. Mason of Amtrak responded that the critique 'didn't hurt because it wasn't true,' but she was frustrated by Free 'misrepresenting the collective effort that went into these plans.' Mason said that while the MTA has had concerns, it has been part of the project for years — the MTA has helped get the money for the project, signed off on the design and participated in the procurement. But there's been a bipartisan group of New York members worried about Amtrak for a while, including everything from Amtrak's service cuts to the full closure of the tunnels. Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's ideas about how to run a railroad also loom over the dispute. To avoid a shutdown of the L subway line in 2019, Cuomo's administration instead shifted most of the work to nights and weekends. He was hailed as a sort of hero at the time and wanted to use that same repair-in-place approach on other projects, including Gateway. Now Hochul wants to use the idea for the East River tunnels. Amtrak recently fought back against it by offering a rare media tour of one of the East River tunnels to show just how fragile the tunnels are and why it considers repair-in-place unworkable. The tour began on a recent Thursday with a descent into Tunnel 2 at 1 a.m. Down there, travelling on the back of a truck in an otherwise empty tunnel dozens of feet below Manhattan's 1st Avenue and the East River itself, Amtrak officials pointed to the extent of the damage done by time and Sandy. Rickety catwalks meant for escape in an emergency seemed questionable at best. Water dripped from the ceiling, pooling near tracks in a way that could force trains to slow or stop. Cast-iron casing crumbled in one Amtrak worker's hand. The tunnel repairs Amtrak is making should ensure people can escape in an emergency. It won't stop all the dripping, but it's expected to prevent puddles from shutting down service and will upgrade the tunnel's interior and electrical work. 'What we're designing is a tunnel that helps itself,' said Liam McQuat, Amtrak's vice president of engineering services. 'This has been 12 years in the making.' The biggest impression Amtrak made was just how hard it would be to cram in work on nights and weekends: It seemed hard enough to get a gaggle of reporters in and out of the tunnel — no trains could travel in the tunnel that had to be blocked off and powered down for safety. The message Amtrak sent was that trying to get hundreds of workers and all their equipment in and out of the tunnel each night and have the tunnel reopened in time for the morning commute would be challenging and inefficient. It could also triple or quadruple the time it would take to make the repairs. In a press conference the next day, Free dismissed Amtrak's tour as the work of a car salesman. 'The salesman pulls the car up, you sit in the car, pulls at your heartstrings, pulls at your emotions,' Free said. 'But at the end of the day, it's about the details, it's about what's the bottom line.'

New York Post

4 days ago

• New York Post

Gov. Hochul rips Zohran Mamdani's tax on rich, admits costs are pushing NYers to ‘Palm Beach'

Gov. Kathy Hochul shut down Democratic Socialist mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani's plan to hike taxes on some New Yorkers — as she admitted high costs were pushing residents to move out of state. Hochul was asked in a TV interview if she backed Mamdani's plan to tax wealthy New Yorkers and up the corporate tax and flatly replied, 'No.' 'I'm not raising taxes at at time where affordability is the big issue,' Hochul told PIX 11. Advertisement 3 NY Gov. Kathy Hochul says she will not raise taxes on the wealthy in an interview with Pix 11. Gabriella Bass Mamdani has said he would impose a 2% income tax on Big Apple residents who make more than $1 million a year and inflate the corporate tax from 7.25% to 11.5%, the same as New Jersey. 'I don't want to lose any more people to Palm Beach,' she said. 'We've lost enough.' Advertisement Mamdani is polling second in the crowded Democratic primary for mayor and has been closing the gap with the frontrunner, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Mamdani has campaigned on promises of rent freezes on rent-controlled apartments, free buses and city-owned grocery stores. 3 Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani's tax plan hinges on collaboration with Albany to get expenses and tax hikes approved. Paul Martinka His plan to pay for it all relies on the very tax Hochul said she's not biting on, but he can't do it without Albany's approval. 'Let's be smart about this,' she said. Advertisement Many skeptics of the Queen's pol, who is now serving in the state Assemblyman, have highlighted the difficulty he will have in footing the bill for his promises. A recent scathing Op-Ed by the New York Times Editorial Board said the socialist lawmaker's policy plans ignore the 'trade-offs' required when governing. 'Mr. Mamdani, who has called Mr. de Blasio the best New York mayor of his lifetime, offers an agenda that remains alluring among elite progressives but has proved damaging to city life,' the board said. Fellow mayoral candidates Cuomo and Whitney Tilson have also jumped in to denounce Mamdani's financial plans on debate stages and in TV advertisements. At last week's debate, Cuomo asked Tilson, a former hedge fund manager, if the tax proposals laid out by Mamdani were feasible. Advertisement 3 Mamdani argues the state has desire to Increase taxes. Paul Martinka 'This all has to go through Albany; there is no appetite for what he is calling for,' Tilson responded. '(Even if it did pass) statewide, he's assuming that the legislature would just give it all (tax money) to New York City — that's truly delusional,' he argued. Mamdani defended his plan following the debate. 'You can see in the budgets of both the (state) Assembly and the Senate, a desire to increase taxes on those who can afford it, to be able to pay for a better quality of life for everyone,' he told reporters. A spokesperson for Mamdani did not respond to request for comment.

Fast Company

6 days ago

• Fast Company

New York City's plan to turn subway platforms into art galleries

The New York City subway is not a glamorous scene to behold. Between the grime, the crime, and the occasional scurrying rat, it is best experienced in small doses and only when the need arises. Unless, that is, you're traveling through Grand Army Plaza. As of May this year, anyone passing through the Brooklyn transit hub will be stopped in their tracks by a 7-foot tall, papier-mâché T-Rex looming over what may well be New York City's most outlandish bodega. Titled Rex's Dino Store, the bodega is located inside one of the city's defunct newsstand kiosks. It features newspapers with titles like The Maul Street Journal, Jurassic Park Slope, and various pun-laden products like a 'Steg-Yun' poster and 'Snarlboro' cigarettes, all purchasable with a 'Master-claw' card. Alas, none of the items on display at the bodega are actually for sale, since it is an art installation more akin to a diorama. 'We are also glad to bring some whimsy to MTA riders' commute,' says artist Sarah Cassidy, who created the project with artist Akiva Leffert. 'Even if you're having a bad day, it's difficult to resist a good dinosaur pun.' Subscribe to the Design latest innovations in design brought to you every weekday SIGN UP Privacy Policy | Fast Company Newsletters But according to Mira Atherton, a senior manager in the MTA's real estate department and the curator of the initiative, Rex's Dino Store marks a turning point for the initiative, which has primarily grown through word-of-mouth. 'It's in a very visible part of the station, and it's such a fun and creative and loud activation,' she says. 'In the past month, I've gotten so many inquiries from artists.' The vacancy struggle The MTA has long struggled to fill its retail spaces. Of the roughly 195 retail units scattered throughout the subway system, only 52 are open for business, reflecting a staggering 75% vacancy rate that has worsened since the pandemic stalled foot traffic. Previous attempts to reinvigorate them have included leasing to coffee kiosks, and ATMs. Some have floated more radical ideas. Assembly member and NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani has proposed transforming these unused spaces into crisis and drop-in centers to assist unhoused New Yorkers. His $10 million initiative would fund outreach workers stationed inside empty units, offering immediate care and connecting individuals to longer-term services. Meanwhile, the goal of the Vacant Unit Activation Program is to enchant the transit experience by bringing moments of unexpected delight into the city's drab underground corridors. Might these art installations eventually attract paying tenants? Atherton says that hasn't happened yet—but it's not off the table. And if a commercial partner does express interest in a location, the art installations don't necessarily have to go the way of the T-Rex. 'The hope is it will inspire retailers—but that could work for an entire corridor rather than a single unit,' she says, noting that some subway stations have more than one vacant unit. A problem with a solution Atherton was entrusted with the project in January 2023. At the time, she says, the vacancies were 'a problem with no solution.' First, she considered launching a design challenge for architecture and design students, or bringing on a master tenant to program the spaces, but ultimately, she landed on an open call for artists and cultural organizations. It launched in November 2023 with a purposefully non-prescriptive brief. 'We don't want to say 'this is what you should do,'' says Atherton. 'The point is that the MTA doesn't know. I would have never thought of putting a dinosaur in a bodega.' (The program is entirely separate from the better-known MTA Arts & Design initiative, which has its own budget and commissions permanent mosaics, murals, and digital works across various subway stations.) The first installation opened in May 2024 and was created by artist Natalie Collette Wood, in partnership with the nonprofit ChaShaMa. Titled Urban Oasis: Nature in Transit, it was located at Fifth Avenue and 53rd Street, where Collette Wood transformed an empty store into a lush, plant-filled terrarium, granting New Yorkers an unexpected pocket of calm in Midtown Manhattan. At the time of writing, a total of eight stations feature active art installations, each with their own focus and flair. At 50th Street, in Manhattan, an installation titled Safe Space by artist Traci Johnson imagines a pink, plush interior designed to provide the comfort of a mother's womb. At 81st Street, near the Museum of Natural History, an interactive piece called SoundBooth invites passersby to plug in their instruments for a spontaneous busking session. And at Jackson Heights–Roosevelt Avenue, the Queens-based nonprofit Los Herederos has turned a former retail unit into a vibrant, community-inspired space that doubles as a home base for their web radio station, LH Radio. A play on the subway? Urban Oasis at 53rd Street, offering a fresh perspective on the same stretch of corridor. And later this year, if all goes to plan, Atherton hopes to unveil her most ambitious idea inside a long-abandoned unit at the Port Authority Bus Terminal. The idea? An as-of-yet-undefined collaboration with a theater group called Jewel Box, which already hosts plays in a speakeasy-style room. 'There's a ton of vacant space that's difficult to program because the electrical systems are outdated and the power supply is very limited,' she says, but she's determined to get creative. At Grand Army Plaza, the MTA had to undertake some construction to make the kiosk usable. Cassidy and Leffert faced several challenges and bureaucratic hurdles, from securing artist insurance to fireproofing the materials—including Rex himself—but they say the delays only gave them more time to sculpt a better dinosaur. (The entire installation cost about $5,000 out of pocket.) Initially, the pair had proposed an immersive sound installation, but the MTA rejected the idea on safety grounds. Sound equipment, for example, would require live supervision, and there was no budget for that. So, they went back to the drawing board. The kiosk already had a newsstand with a countertop and shelving in place, so the cogs started turning. 'A bodega… on the moon? A bodega… for cats? It was an old bodega. So how old was it? A bodega for dinosaurs?' From there, Cassidy says, 'the puns started to write themselves.' The final deadline for Fast Company's Next Big Things in Tech Awards is Friday, June 20, at 11:59 p.m. PT. Apply today.