Emergency call boxes at the Staten Island Railway's Richmond Valley station are out of service, wrapped in black garbage bags.
Riders fear they may be out of luck if they need help.
"God forbid someone does get mugged or hurt, they can't get help."
"If there's a problem how are you going to contact them? If they were working its easier to contact them and let them know the problem so they can come faster and help it."
James Pistilli can relate. His son was the victim of a robbery 10 years ago. Pistilli says the robbers took his son's cell phone, so he had no way of calling the Police.
"In a time of crisis or trauma, you want to use the quickest response method possible which would be to simply press that button," said Pistilli.
The MTA installed these Customer Assistance Intercoms in the city's subway and Staten Island Railway stations decade ago. But Assemblyman Ron Castorina says the 18 million dollar project has never been operable on Staten Island, except for intercoms at one train station.
"The boxes are falling apart, they haven't even been put into service for one day," said Castorina.
NY1 News reached out to the MTA. They say they are updating software on the call boxes and they should be up and running very soon.
The MTA also added that surveillance cameras are working and can spot any criminal activity happening at the train station.
But, at the moment there is no date for when the intercoms will be available for use.