The governor of New York and overseer of mass transit. In the flesh and being an obstruction.
NY Daily News: EXCLUSIVE: Gov. Cuomo’s executive budget includes hidden $65M cut in MTA funds
The suffering subway, bus and rail system may have less money to move New Yorkers.
A line tucked deep in Gov. Cuomo’s executive budget from last month calls for a $65 million cut to a chunk of money the state gives to the MTA — down to $244 million from $309 million last year. The 21% cut, if it survives the budget process, would hit the MTA at a time when commuters are fuming over frequent delays, spotty service, overcrowding and constant fare hikes.
“If Gov. Cuomo wants to take credit for opening the Second Ave. subway, he also has to take responsibility of the day-to-day operations in the rest of the subway system,” said John Raskin, director of the Riders Alliance.
The money from the state’s general fund is supposed to keep the MTA whole after the state in 2011 slashed a politically unpopular payroll tax on businesses in the region served by the transit network. “This funding is based only on a promise,” Raskin said. “We had a fear that a moment like this would come to pass, where the governor is proposing to break that promise.”
The Dirty Southeast, Richmond Hill, Queens, N.Y.
What a nasty surprise Mario’s son Governor Andrew Cuomo has gave us after his vainglorious grand opening of the most expensive and massively delayed minor subway expansion in recent memory.
Never mind that the worst transit system in the fucking universe has seen daily preposterous delays and scattershot line changes every weekend. The impending and irresponsibly overdue suspension of the L line to Manhattan. And the rise of habitation of indigent and mentally ill homeless people and criminal trends like petty larceny, deviant sexual exposure and harassment, and track deaths via suicide and pushing commuters into oncoming trains.
Never mind hour long delays caused by recent incidents of flooding after storms or even a few days after a modest snowfall or even during an extraordinary windy day.
Never mind the painfully obvious fact of overpopulation and overcrowding, no thanks to greedy developers and the groveling pandering spineless whores being our corrupt mayor and city council taking their filthy donor lucre, leading to hyper-development near the transit lines. Suffocating the cars and platforms as one gets closer to the city.
And mostly never mind the fact that the subway is still being guided by a century old signal system. Consisting of little bulbs, faucet levers, rusty boxes and dangling wires and tags.
For you, the transit customer, will just have to remain tolerant and accept these hapless yet preventable inconveniences, for our governor somehow needs the monies for other pressing matters, or maybe just squandered it for his gilded age new year’s eve party in the 86th street gallery station.
Of course, when in light of the aforementioned 2nd avenue celebratory debut that Andy hosted, a lot of lesser structurally sound and aesthetically pleasing stations that are devoid of modern art are going to have to wait a little longer for crucial repairs and updates.
For example. The 2 year modernization of the Lefferts Blvd. A Line Station for which this digital publication has documented previously. Apparently those posts have not made the impact I initially hoped for, despite the highest viewer count I got for my screed against our oblivious governor. By happenstance, I wound up at the end of the workday by the 2nd Ave 72nd street station Q line and took some snapshots on what selective proactive and diligent government action can do.
From left to right, then left to right. The entrance at 69th street, the awning gives the impression of going into space mountain. The deep, well illuminated escalator from top to bottom. The stupid art, notably the popsicle wielding cop. The pointless latin inscripture. And, last but not least, a bland jazz cover band consisting of hipster stereotypes for vibrancy. The enormity of this station will not be immune to inevitable homeless habitation that will certainly consume all this unnecessary space and the lame unprotected art will surely be defaced with graffiti by more crude creative hooligans. Since millions are going to reallocated, ensuring the station’s vulnerability to blight.
The Lefferts stalled stairway entrance on the other hand:
There has been some mild progress, there are more orange buoys surrounding the area awaiting the long anticipated stairway. They somewhat scrubbed most of the pigeon shit off by the turnstiles, although quarter-assed, because apparently they left it there so long that it has now become a permanent stain. Which is as close to art as you can get. They removed some of the tarp off the elevator. And they finally updated the duct taped completion date sheet for reassurance and long overdue acknowledgement of the inconvenience this pathetic elongated neglect has caused for the masses. So instead of being completed on January 2016 2017 it will be done whenever the end of the first quarter is. I’m not fluent in Albany or MTA front office bureaucrat-speak but I am going to guesstimate that this daily eyesore will finally be of use in June.
Now with this nasty surprise by Mario’s son, I think this is going to remain dormant for a long time, as well as other stops in towns with less cache, glass towers, marked up studios, wine bars and cupcake shops. And with the recent decision to keep the fare at 2.75, this blatant indifference will continue still, for now the agency has warped justification to keep the status quo of shiftless and lousy service.
Impunity City 