Fresh MTA insults: Burn cash on pointless ‘experiments’ (on us!), demands more billions

 Enough: If the MTA is so very, very broke, why is it burning cash on pathetic “pilot projects” like tearing out benches at West 4th Street station in favor of bizarre “leaning bars”?

The agency won’t even come clean on the obvious goal, namely to stop vagrants from sleeping on the benches.

Nope, it pretends the experiment is about making better use of space.

The MTA has been removing benches in subway stations in favor of “leaning bars.”Aristide Economopoulos

And never mind that it means nobody gets to sit down.

Of course, keeping homeless from camping out is an excellent goal, as is ending the plague of turnstile-jumping.

But the answers are obvious: Enforce the law.

Hire MTA police to move the vagrants along and to arrest farebeaters.

Instead, the agency keeps spending on futile “experiments” — one set of new turnstiles, then another; security guards; even a silly million-dollar study of how behavioral science might maybe reduce farebeating.

No wonder its final adopted operating budget rose from $14.6 billion for 2015 to $17.1 billion in 2020 and $19.9 billion this year.

That’s up more than 36% over 10 years — for what? Does anyone see any tangible service improvements?

The MTA’s final adopted operating budget for 2025 is $19.9 billion.Aristide Economopoulos

And its latest budget “plans” are too optimistic to even count as wish lists.

While the MTA refuses to address farebeating (or cost overruns and an out-of-control budget), it has the gall to ask city taxpayers to cough up $4 billion over the next four years — on top of the billions it’s getting out of the state and federal governments. 

Stifle your laughter: One executive said the MTA deserves the cash because of “great service.”

Yes, the major villains are the politicians that the MTA technocrats must answer to: a Legislature that’s allergic to supporting law enforcement and a governor who doesn’t dare face down the lefty loons.

But it’s the technocrats who keep slapping the public in the face with these feckless, hopeless experiments — which, again, cost real money that the agency keeps complaining it doesn’t have.

Don’t confront the real trouble-makers, but treat everyone as lab rats; cry poverty but spend pointlessly: Keep it up, and someone’s going to suggest you can’t be trusted to run a single train.

https://nypost.com/2025/03/19/opinion/mta-insults-burning-cash-on-pointless-experiments-as-they-demand-billions/