Oct
29
New bus depot already in need of $1.1 million repairs
ByIn 2003, the MTA opened up a fancy new bus depot on 100th St. between Lexington and Park. Five years later, the depot is already in need of substantial repairs. The walls are buckling, and bricks have fallen from the building. While some critics will claim this as par for the MTA’s course, it is in reality the fault of the contract, and according to NYC Transit head Howard Roberts, the MTA will not take this sitting down. “We will initiate proceedings against the original contractor,” he said to The Daily News earlier this week. Justice will be served.
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Damn right the contractor will be held responsible. That’s what we need for MANY of the renovation/construction/maintenance projects for the MTA…freakin’ down escalators at Herald Square have been broken for over a month now. I love how they just keep adding tape with a new date on top of the existing ones for the “This escalator will be out of service until…”
When the MTA uses it’s own employees to do work the work gets done right but it must cost a little more. So the TA uses contractors who don’t do quality work because they are the lowest bidders and don’t have to follow the same safety procedures that TA employee’s must follow.
You get what you pay for.
I wonder how many bidders there were on this contract. And in the unlikely case the answer was something other than “one”, I wonder if they took the contractors’ past history into account as well as how “cheap” the bids were.