Late summer of hell
The No. 1, 2, 3 trains are used for more than a million trips a day. So are the A, C, E. In Thursday morning’s rush, both were thrown into total meltdown. The southbound 1, 2, 3 shut completely for hours due to a faulty protective cover on the third rail. That overran the A, C, E with passengers, causing unconscionable delays there, too.
One of our number had to take five — count ’em, five — trains from Upper Manhattan to our downtown office, in a tortuous 95 minutes.
Gov. Cuomo, who runs the MTA and is chiefly responsible for the subways, was not among the thousands caught in the nightmare. Nor was Mayor de Blasio, who owns the system and refuses to put up the cash MTA boss Joe Lhota says is necessary to perform urgent upgrades.
Both governor and mayor get around just fine, in taxpayer-proved vehicles, no matter what — and act accordingly.
When breakdowns hit what we should all pray was a peak back in July, Cuomo rightly and belatedly accepted his responsibility to come to the rescue. He brought back the competent Lhota, who offered a credible plan to right the mess. It has 33 separate steps across five areas. That was 52 days ago. It feels like six months. Lhota pledged “a public dashboard to measure categories important to our customers, including reliability, safety and customer experience.”
In familiar MTA-talk, the dashboard is experiencing delays. It should arrive in a month. Really?
Do better than that, Joe — and even if it isn’t all ready, start posting what is.
When the final product is unveiled, it had better monitor things like delays and breakdowns and signal problems and balky switches and even third-rail covers that caused Thursday’s chaos.
And give riders updates on Lhota’s 33 action items, from hardware maintenance to cleaning.
The price tag is hefty, more than $800 million, with Cuomo and de Blasio each asked to pay half from their budgets (meaning, our tax dollars).
Cuomo says he’s good for it and will be going to the Legislature to get the cash. We’re waiting.
De Blasio just rails at Cuomo. The mayor is right and wrong. Cuomo and his predecessors did pilfer from the fare box, but those days are — hopefully — over.
The best way to find more cash to support and transform the system over the long-term: congestion pricing of the untolled East River bridges, which Cuomo supports and de Blasio opposes. De Blasio instead is pining for a millionaires’ tax that couldn’t yield a cent until 2020, and only if the state Senate shifts to Democratic control.
But the MTA can’t use supposed poverty as an excuse for endless, gut-wrenching delays. Given the budget he’s got right now, Lhota must work management magic, damn quick.
Straphangers have had it up to here. Enough, governor. Enough, mayor. Enough!