A State of Disrepair
Dov Hikind, a Brooklyn-based assemblyman, and Scott Stringer, the Manhattan borough president, both have fielded their fair share of constituent complaints about the state of the subway infrastructure. So they took matters into their own hands and examined 100 subway stations throughout the city. According to a report the two plan to release later today, they have found a system rife with structural problems and an MTA slow to respond to complaints. These findings are nothing new, but they are just another salvo for critics skeptical of the MTA’s ability to run the city’s transit network.
If they think that 100 stations are going to get structural improvements without a massive injection of capital, then they’re living in fantasy land. These problems have needed fixing since before most of us were born. Generation after generation, we under-fund the subway, and amateur commentators say that if only the system were better managed, all of these problems could be fixed within the current budget.
I am not suggesting the MTA is perfectly run, but the claim that management is incompetent seems to transcend eras. It seems to be a permanent state of affairs. If you have incompetent managers, you fire them. But if they’re (allegedly) incompetent after 60-70 years, then you have a different problem.
If Dov Hikind spent half as much time trying to improve the subway as he does hating on blacks and Muslims, for a start we might just have had congestion pricing by now.
I wonder how fast conditions would improve if the workers pretended they are working for a private employer and actually started doing their jobs. Good management can only take you so far; it’s the whole MTA culture that needs to change.