Key Projects Awash in Waste
MTA Big With Your Money

By MEL LEVY

Here we go again. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is now embarking on two unneeded major projects: Part 1 of the 2nd Avenue Subway (scheduled start 2008) for $3.8 billion, and an extension of the Number 7 Line (with New York City picking up the first $2.8 billion of the construction cost). Both projects will benefit a limited number of people.

The 2nd Avenue Line when completed will give the Upper East Side of Manhattan its own private line. The cost of this section to start is only $48,000 per inch, at least 12 times what it should cost. But it's only money.

The MTA's Capital Construction Company (a company not yet approved by the Legislature) gave the 2nd Avenue engineering design contract to consultants for $600 million when it could have been done in-house for $50 million. It's only money.

There is an upside, since one of the consultants has been rehabilitated, as its history shows during previous MTA work (on the New Routes Program) it allowed a sub-consultant to ship a piano from England to the U.S. and back for $40,000. The consultant also pleaded guilty to crimes (which to a legal amateur looked like bribery) in Boston and Pittsburgh. Hey, it's only money.

The extension of the Number 7 Line will benefit the Javits Center and the developer of the West Side Rail Yards (which will hurt the redevelopment of Lower Manhattan). This project starts out at about $60,000 per inch (at least 15 times what it should cost). The consultant was previously removed from the Big Dig Central Artery project in Boston. It seems it was getting too much money for unneeded work. This is the same consultant doing the LIRR East Side Connection (which started out at $2.2 billion and is now estimated at over $5 billion), using the design and construction put forth by the New York City Transit in-house staff (with no reduction in fee). By the in-house method that is being used by the consultant, the construction cost should have gone down, not up. As for the Number 7 Line, again the estimated cost is 15 times too high. Hey, it's only money.

Can you imagine how this money might have been better used? Example: a platform extension program for the entire Lexington Ave. line (serving The Bronx, Manhattan and Brooklyn) for $1.25 billion, increasing its capacity by 20 percent in less than six years. Real Homeland Security measures for the city (without having to beg the Feds for help). And maybe even a tax cut.

Remember, it's only money. Yours.

Mr. Levy, a retired veteran of 35 years in the transit system who monitored the structural integrity of the subway system's below-river tunnels, is the former chairman of the Civil Service Technical Guild's New York City Transit chapter.