"What"re They For, Exactly?" $100 Million Bridge-And-Tunnel Towers Baffle New Yorkers

After a summer plagued by hours-long delays and service outages, New Yorkers’ frustration with the city’s rapidly deteriorating subway system has reached a boiling point. But while the MTA is desperately trying to close massive budget shortfalls by hiking fares in lieu  of any kind of meaningful assistance from the State of New York, commuters have noticed that a series of mysterious metal towers have started appearing at the entrances of tunnels and bridges around the city.

And some are expressing frustration with Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the MTA for refusing to release any details about the towers" purpose, despite planning to spend $100 million on them.

One New Yorker, Jose Lugo, told CBS that the quickly appeared after the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel toll booths came down.

Earlier this month, Reinvent Albany asked the Authorities Budget Office to investigate whether the "MTA board was fully informed, before approving contracts" related to the construction of the towers. The group is trying to figure out if the MTA board knew what it was doing when it approved a series of contract amendments worth some $47 million worth of expenses for the towers that currently sit at the entrance to the Battery and Queens Midtown Tunnels.

Eventually, the MTA plans to construct 18 such towers, saying only that they will serve some vague anti-terrorism-related purpose.

“It’s a bit mind-boggling that the MTA is approving $100 million for what appears to us to be big, decorative pylons,” says John Kaehny, the leader of the watchdog group Reinvent Albany. “What we’re asking for is transparency from the MTA.”

 

“What we"re asking for is transparency from the MTA.”  

But the individuals in charge are staying tight-lipped about what the towers actually do.

Cedrick Fulton, the head of the MTA"s bridges and tunnels, refused to comment to media organizations asking about the towers, and MTA chaiman and former mayoral candidate Joe Lhota said he wasn"t at liberty to discuss details of the project, other than to confirm that they would serve some type of anti-terrorism-related purpose.

Shams Tarek, a spokesman for the MTA, told Politico that the towers "host cameras, traffic monitoring and other equipment related to homeland security that would otherwise have been hosted by the former toll booth structures".

If this is accurate, then $100 million seems like a hefty price tag for such a project.

Citizens aren’t the only ones asking questions about the towers. According to CBS, some MTA board members, including New York City Transportation Commissioner Polly Trottenberg, say they know too little about the towers – especially considering that the MTA has already spent $50 million on them.

“It’s a $100 million MTA project shrouded in secrecy, with 18 of them for tunnels and bridges. So, what are they exactly?” Trottenberg said.

Let’s hope – for the MTA’s sake – that these pylons do have some kind of sophisticated functionality, and that this isn’t another classic example of the wasteful spending habits that have contributed to the subway’s present-day troubles.  
 

NYC Mayor de Blasio Readies "Millionaires Tax" To Fix Subway

The New York City"s transportation system is in trouble. Delays have skyrocketed on the century-old subway system, and several recent accidents have raised safety concerns. Joseph J. Lhota, chairman of The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, has called upon the mayor to provide more money to fix the system, recently outlining a roughly $800 million emergency rescue plan with a sweeping set of fixes that he vowed would turn around steadily deteriorating service.

“We’re here because the New York City subway system no doubt is in distress, and we’re here looking for solutions,” Mr. Lhota said during a news conference at the authority’s headquarters in Lower Manhattan.

Well, it appears Mr Lhota is about to have his wish come true courtesy of "the rich" once again.

Mayor Bill de Blasio plans to push for a tax on wealthy New Yorkers to pay for improvements needed to address the crisis, according to a report from The NY Times.

Mr. de Blasio will announce a so-called millionaires tax on Monday for wealthy New York City residents to pay for subway and bus upgrades.

The proposal also includes funding to offer half-price MetroCards for low-income riders — part of a national movement that is gaining momentum in New York.

“Rather than sending the bill to working families and subway and bus riders already feeling the pressure of rising fares and bad service, we are asking the wealthiest in our city to chip in a little extra to help move our transit system into the 21st century,” Mr. de Blasio said in a statement.

Of course - de Blasio faces an uphill battle for his populist plan to soak the rich just a "little" bit more...

The tax changes would require approval from state lawmakers in Albany - a difficult task, with Republicans in control of the Senate, though the urgency of the subway’s decline has raised the stakes and captured the attention of both parties.

The mayor’s proposal builds on an effort by State Senator Michael Gianaris, Democrat of Queens, to tax the wealthy to support the subway, and a campaign by transit advocates to establish reduced fares for poor residents after a successful program in Seattle.

“I would argue that the M.T.A. is in a full-blown crisis and that would justify our return to Albany to enact this measure in an emergency session,” Mr. Gianaris said.

The new tax would raise about $700 million to $800 million a year, with more than $500 million going toward capital costs for subways and buses and about $250 million for the half-price MetroCard program, city officials said. It would increase the city’s highest income tax rate by about 0.5 percent, to 4.4 percent from about 3.9 percent, for married couples with incomes above $1 million and individuals who make more than $500,000.

City officials estimate that the tax would be paid by about 32,000 New York City tax filers, or less than 1 percent of those who file their taxes in the city. New Yorkers already contribute to the authority through various taxes and fees, and the city has committed $2.5 billion for the agency’s current capital improvement plan.

Anyone else see "the broken subway fallacy" at work here? Still doesn"t matter, the "rich" can afford it right? It"s only "fair",,,