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Filthy New York Subways

Add filth to the growing list of problems with New York’s subways.

A Post survey of dozens of stations found a decrepit, aging system fraught with overcrowded trains, crumbling platforms and stations, unfinished repair work, serious rat and cockroach infestations, mystery ooze dripping from ceilings and termite-eaten signs.

[NYC Transit President Howard] Roberts’ response: It’s extremely bad, and it isn’t going to get better any time soon.

Riders also related stories of a gross lack of communication as well as frequent misinformation within the system.

Mr. Roberts is a clown. MTA can find money to fund art for its stations, poems for its subways and buses, and staff an Office of Film and Special Events, but apparently asking that the stations not smell like piss is just a bridge too far. Roberts’ solution is basically to do nothing to try to curtail waste or prioritize his funding. What awe-inspiring leadership.

Roberts makes one interesting observation though:

With the MTA reporting a steep decline in revenue, especially at bridges and tunnels, straphangers won’t see any improvements. The two proposed fare hikes, Roberts said, would “only maintain the status quo.”

Oh man! Rising gas prices have driven people off the roads onto this system that can’t handle them, and now we have no money since MTA’s funding is dependant on people driving.

I wonder where you’ve heard about this problem before? Probably yesterday when I wrote about it, or maybe last week when I did the same.

The doofus (or doofuses) who dreamed up the current funding structure for MTA should be sent back to first grade to relearn the basic principles of math and logic. When you encourage people not to do something, you cannot count on them to fund something else by continuing to do it anyway. Eventually you get your wish and realize that you are a moron.