MTA Construction Costs Soar, Mayor Sits Idle

During my tenure as president of a union (Chapter 2 Local 375 of District Council 37), I would appear before the Metropolitan Transportation Authority Board. I would present facts that the engineering and construction contracts the Board was to vote on were exceedingly costly and in many cases the projects would be revenue negative.

I made my case (backed up by facts) and it was like talking to a wall, with one exception. At an MTA Committee meeting, then-Transit Authority President John Simpson stated that the union could do (and had done) a better job than the consultants. But he was overridden. Two weeks later he called me into his office to hear his end of a conversation with an MTA Board member in which he was ordered to farm out a contract he objected to.

The MTA Board actions resulted to an increase in capital expenditures (and debt service) which resulted in the fare going up. At no time was there any negative vote by the MTA Board.

This even though the board has four members who are appointed by the Mayor.

We are now in an election year for Mayor. The MTA is working on three major projects affecting the city and one which is supposed to be helping Long Island commuters. The prices are going up, leading to additional pressure on the fare, and none of these projects are necessary. Where is the Mayor (who still has four members on the MTA Board)?

The Second Ave. section (from 63rd St. to 96th St.) has gone up from $3.8 billion to $4.5 billion with no questions asked. This for an unneeded revenue negative project (to accommodate the Upper East Side of Manhattan). Where was the Mayor? Isn’t he supposed to be the Mayor of the whole city?

Do we really need the Fulton St. Hub, which is already $1 billion over budget (and going up)? This project will be a memorial to the architect. Do they not know the real purpose of a station is not to enrich developers and merchants at the expense of the riding public? Using TA engineers would reduce the cost and not add to the fare. Where was the Mayor?

The East Side Connection is becoming New York’s Big Dig. What started out as $2.2 billion is approaching $billion. However, the extension of the Number 7 line (paid for by the city) has so far been kept under $50,000 per inch. There were better and cheaper alternatives. Where was the Mayor?

On Homeland Security money alone is not the answer. Spending wisely is. Again, where is the Mayor?

And so it goes. Costs (for which we get little or nothing) are going up, and where is the Mayor?

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.