Editorial
MTA Madness

Lest there be a sliver of doubt that the MTA is not prioritizing the rehabilitation of its most dilapidated stations, including the disastrous 205th Street stop on the D line, just consider this:

The agency is spending close to half a billion dollars (not a typo) on the South Ferry subway station just so passengers can board or disembark from an additional five subway cars.

“For access, 10 is better than five, but the difference is not worth half a billion dollars, which is probably less than the sum the reconstruction will end up costing, “ writes Henry Stern, the former city parks commissioner turned civic gadfly, in his e-mail newsletter.

Stern also points out another capital project boondoggle.

The Fulton Street station rehab (notice the Manhattan theme here) will require at least a billion dollars, Stern says, for a “minor rerouting of existing lines, with an arcade to the former World Trade Center. Yes, some work should be done here, but the whole nine yards is unnecessary. It is a scheme that idle engineers design when there is no imminent construction work facing them.”

So, that’s $1.5 billion for two stations on the southern tip of Manhattan that are in much better shape than ours.

Meanwhile, stations here in the north Bronx crumble. The 205th Street D Station, with its stalagmites, missing tiles, and water damage is downright disgusting. The Kingsbridge D station is little better. The stations on the 4-line are, mercifully, finally in the process of rehabilitation. The worst of them, the Mosholu station, is slated for renovation beginning in 2006, but we’ve been promised this for so long, it would be foolish not to hold the MTA accountable.

How do we do that? Every which way we can. Bemoaning the situation to neighbors and fellow commuters, or even in editorials like this one, won’t be sufficient. The proof of that is in the state of the stations. Instead, we need to press our elected officials, particularly our state legislators, to put the screws to the MTA to prioritize disintegrating outer-borough stations and other transit priorities like extending lines over building fantasy stations in lower Manhattan. (As we report on p. 2, Borough President Adolfo Carrión has renewed his call for the renovation of Bronx stations.) We need to write and call the governor and the mayor, who control the agency, and get our neighbors to do all of the above.

The MTA’s priorities are misplaced, but it’s not enough to point that out to each other. We’re not going to get better stations without demanding them.

Out of the Woodwork
… If you’re interested in getting Henry Stern’s newsletter (referred to above), e-mail him at starquest@nycivic.org  

… In looking for a last-minute brisket for Passover dinner, we went to the Web site for Fairway, the big specialty food supermarket just down the West Side Highway at 125th Street to see what time they closed. Here’s the information we found there about the communities they deliver to: “$5.25 for deliveries between 181st and 210th streets. Riverdale customers add $4.00 toll. No deliveries to the Bronx area.”

Uh, and Riverdale is in what borough?

Out of the Woodwork is an occasional collection of editorial odds and ends.

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