Fix the current transit system before blowing – Latest News
MTA officers are begging Team Trump and New York lawmakers for billions to keep the trains working and fund $68 billion in capital initiatives.
Yet the company is nonetheless transferring forward with plans to shell out one other jaw-dropping $7.7 billion to increase the 2nd Avenue subway.
What sort of management is that?
If you’re too broke to repair the gap in your roof, do you begin work on a new wing in your home?
Insanely, this 29-block, 1.8-mile extension, from 96th to one hundred and twenty fifth Street in Manhattan, is to value $4.3 billion per mile, more than another subway build-out in historical past.
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(It would push the 2nd Ave’s first section, at $2.5 billion a mile, to No. 2.)
And of course value overruns would push the invoice even greater.
No matter: On Wednesday, the MTA board greenlighted practically a quarter-billion {dollars} in funding only for consultants for the project — two corporations to supervise construction, the different for design tweaks.
Utter madness: At a City Council listening to final week, company officers warned that, absent more funding, straphangers might quickly face repeated subway breakdowns, delays and derailments — as occurred during the “Summer of Hell” in 2017.
“Many components are falling apart and need to be replaced or preserved,” warned MTA Co-Chief Financial Officer Jai Patel. “If we don’t do this critical work, it’s not an exaggeration that we will be looking at another ‘Summer of Hell.’”
That makes it felony to spend a single dime on a new project that may siphon money from restore and upkeep on the current system.
Hel-lo: Then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s 2016 rush to get Phase 1 finished (so he may journey the first 2nd Avenue practice by New Year’s Day) led on to the unique “Summer of Hell” months later.
New Yorkers spend a fortune on mass transit, some $20 billion simply to run the system — but the MTA’s all the time pleading for new money: more payroll tax surcharges, congestion-pricing tolls, fare hikes (it’s going up to $3 in August).
US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is correct: On Tuesday, he blasted the MTA for its “financial mismanagement” after it again begged for more dough from Uncle Sam.
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Hochul wants the company to get its priorities straight: Yes, it might be great to increase the subway from Harlem to Manhattan’s southern tip. But not at $4.3 billion a mile (or more).
Especially when scarce {dollars} are needed elsewhere.
Whatever money could be scraped collectively should go to keep the trains working easily — with out fixed breakdowns and delays.
That means repairing and changing failing indicators, tracks and the rolling stock.
Any drive for any new project proper now could be merely begging for recent hell, and possibly not simply a summer time of it.
