Years of neglect at New York City Transit didn’t just hurt riders, it also put the health and safety of its workers at risk.

That’s the troubling bottom line of an interim report from the MTA’s inspector general, Carolyn Pokorny. And she hints the final report may hold even more bad news, noting she’s now citing only those “concerns” that are too pressing to wait.

The IG and her crew looked at six NYC Transit boiler rooms and found “severe safety and/or structural issues.” Among the horrors: fire hazards, deficient emergency lighting, asbestos, exposed wires, mold, crumbling walls, rats and other problems.

“It is unacceptable to expect workers to report to work in what are essentially preventable, extremely hazardous conditions,” railed Pokorny. Absolutely right.

Most disconcerting, she said the problems were “known” to management “for some time” but left unaddressed.

That’s outrageous — yet sadly familiar. For years, the MTA neglected the entire system, until delays and even accidents became too frequent to ignore.

It all came to a head in 2017, when Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who had deferred to the MTA’s professionals for years, admitted that riders faced a public-transit “Summer of Hell.” Officials then raced to launch the emergency Subway Action Plan.

Now we know that workers were suffering, too — even if the public had no idea. Why weren’t their managers making a stink? Where was their union? It seems the MTA’s dysfunctional culture rules the thinking of both management and labor.

The agency itself can’t cry poverty, with its $17 billion operating budget and $32 billion capital plan.

It won’t suffice for MTA boss Pat Foye and NYC Transit head Andy Byford to simply fix the problems that Pokorny is finding. They — and the leaders of the Transport Workers Union and other agency locals — need to build an MTA-wide culture that doesn’t just accept the unacceptable.