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MTA to Spend $250M for “Cosmetic” Subway Makeover

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While strap-hangers are suffering with record delays, constant service interruptions and hearing the dreaded words from the conductor “switch problems” as hopes of coming to work on time are shattered every morning, Governor Cuomo pushed thru a $250 million in upgrades for the MTA which are mostly for cosmetic upgrades, upsetting the Mayor and critics.

Enhanced Station Initiative has been criticized by some transit advocates and the mayor as too heavily focused on cosmetics at a time when the subway faces more pressing needs, like fixing an antiquated infrastructure that has contributed to its dismal performance, the NY Times reported.

Andrew M. Cuomo’s plan will add amenities like new lighting and USB ports while doing little to address the more pertinent problems, such as trains functioning normally and on time.

The 10-3 vote by the board of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which runs the subway. This ends a long going dispute between the mayor and Cuomo. De Blasio hoped this plan would go down in flames and money would be allocated to more important issues.

Not only are serious mechanical issues left out in this outrageous $250 million package, advocates for the disabled were angered that the plan to overhaul a total of 33 stations does not include funds for elevators in a system in which less than a quarter of the 472 subway stations are accessible.

“Thirty years after passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, three-quarters of New York’s subway stations remain closed to people who can’t use stairs,” Jon Orcutt, the director of communications and advocacy for Transit Center, a research group, said in an email. The email also stated: “Despite NYC Transit President Andy Byford’s ‘new understanding’ of this program, there is still no M.T.A. strategy, plan or goal for taking N.Y.C. subway accessibility forward in the 21st century.”, the NY Times reported.

Andy Byford, the president of New York City Transit, the M.T.A.’s subway division, offered a ringing endorsement of the new spending plan, he also claims the changes are not only cosmetic.

“If they were purely cosmetic then I would have a problem with it” Mr. Byford said at a meeting on Thursday

He also added: “To wait for perfection at every station…. Some will fall into a dangerous state of disrepair, and you will fall into my scenario of, yes, it’s ADA-compliant but oops” — the station would be inaccessible because it had fallen apart”.

Byford claims figuring out how to make every station compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act, will drag out the work and certain stations are skipped because of the proximity to stations that are already equipped for those with disabilities.

Rider advocacy groups are left wondering, what about those “switch problems” and all those mechanical issues which cause the daily frustrations of millions of New Yorkers.

By Artie Weinberger

 

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