The Fire Department doesn’t like that radio system either. (Image from The Times)
First, the Police didn’t find the MTA’s $140 million investment supposed ground-penetrating system workable. And now, unsurprisingly, the Fire Department has realized that, hey, radio waves don’t really penetrate the ground either.
Citing “dead spots” where the radio signal cannot penetrate, the Fire Department said yesterday that the system is a failure. The MTA is now looking at a mighty expensive failure at a time when money is tight. “It’s only been through the sort of exhaustive testing that’s gone on that we’ve found these areas that are of concern to us, and we don’t want to rely on the system until it’s as close to 100 percent as we can make it,” said Francis X. Gribbon, a Fire Department spokesman, to The Times.
New York’s paper of record had more:
The Fire Department has also given the system a failing grade, saying it is permeated with “dead spots” where radio signals do not reach. It is a setback for the authority, which built the system and had defended its work by saying that despite the rejection of police officials, the Fire Department was using the system and was pleased with its performance.
That is no longer the case. The Fire Department is preparing to circulate a memo to fire units this week which, in a draft provided by the department, says that “after many months of testing” it has concluded that the subway radio system does not “uphold the communications and safety standards of the F.D.N.Y.”
There’s a lot of techno mumbo-jumbo in the article about radio frequencies and transmission signals. It delves into the differences between the police signals, which didn’t work too well off the bat, and the fire department’s signals which at least made it through some tests.
But the bottom line is stark and straightforward. The MTA will have to spend an additional $20 million to fix these transmission problems which one New York City Transit official called “not an unanticipated result.” The total cost of the project is now set at $210 million, and this radio wave problem is just another example of unforeseen costs plaguing the MTA. It’s nothing new for the MTA which has faced these cost overruns for, oh, the last 103 years. What’s another $70 million anyway?