Mad Money

Yes, we're cynical. But they've made us so. The perennially mismanaged Metropolitan Transportation Authority has spent recent years crying poverty, racking up massive debt, cutting service, raising fares, skimping on maintenance, shelving long-necessary expansion projects like the Second Avenue Subway, scaling back plans for station renovations and repairs and overpaying contractors. All of this has added up to an increasingly heavy toll on the millions of riders who depend on the transit system to get them to work every day.

So when, for the second year in a row, the MTA gets a massive, unexpected property tax windfall of $900 million (essentially money found in the couch), we expect that they'll at least try to make provisions to stave off future service reductions and fare increases.

But the MTA, perhaps to boost its sagging image among riders, has decided instead to offerfare reductions on weekends and through the holidays amounting to about $50 million in lost revenue. The agency's spokespeople make this out to be a kind of thank you to riders, a little holiday gift for people suffering from high gas prices and wanting to enjoy the city's winter wonderland.

The more conspiracy-minded among us (myself included) have theorized that the giveaway-announced only a couple of weeks before the mayoral election-might have something to do with Bloomberg's campaign. That the mayor has been wildly ineffective in helping solve the agency's cash flow problems (despite controlling four voting members of the MTA board), might be overlooked if he gets reflected credit for the givebacks.

If the mayor wants credit for helping fix the MTA, he should donate $50 million and personally sponsor these holiday cuts. That should curry way more favor than carpetbombing primetime with campaign ads.

The agency's got $50 million to blow on improving their image with riders. While we're dreaming, here are some other ideas:

Free rides on the G, and for anyone inconvenienced by weekend or late night track work.

There is little that can do justice to the feeling of paying your fare only to find that the train isn't stopping at your station and you have to go in the wrong direction in order to switch trains and go back towards where you were going. It sucks more than anything, and warrants forgiving the fare of anyone who has to enter at that station.

The N may be rated the worst line in the system according to NYPIRG's Straphangers, but there is a palpable aura of decline that has surrounded the G for years. No one can explain it fully; whether it be the waits or the grime, the G just sucks, and riders shouldn't have to pay until it's on a par with, say, the 6.

Improved handicapped access.

Imagine you're stuck in a chair and you have to get somewhere. Your choice is to take a snail-paced city bus or somehow find a route among the few subway stations that have working elevators. This isn't easy. While there are elevators built into many of the larger stations, they're often out of order, leaving many handicapped riders stranded and unable to get by. And just try getting a wheelchair through one of those turnstiles with the revolving bars when there's no station agent on duty.

The Americans With Disabilities Act has been around for decades, mandating improved access to public facilities. Why is the MTA so far behind?

Pay down the MTA's massive debts.

This one is a no-brainer. As we go into the next few fiscal years, more and more of the MTA's budget will be devoted to interest on bonds they've floated to balance past budgets. While $50 million is a drop in the bucket, it does accrue several million in interest each year, effectively making the fare giveaway costly over time. Paying down debt isn't sexy, but it is much much more responsible than giving the money away.

Restore token booth clerks late at night.

The move earlier this year to remove many token booth clerks has left a lot of riders without that extra level of safety that makes them comfortable riding late at night. Who wants to be in an empty station waiting forever when a bunch of drunk hoods wanders onto the platform?

Renovate the bathrooms.

Unknown to most, there are actually 100+ bathrooms throughout the subway system, only a small percentage of which are in service. The cleanest of these are the four stalls in the Times Square station, which are actually run by Boston Properties and not the MTA.

An urban myth holds that many of the closed bathrooms have been sealed off indefinitely because it would be too expensive to have them cleaned (picture men in haz-mat suits disinfecting toilets overgrown with mold).

It may seem frivolous to spend this kind of cash on cans, but anyone who has found themselves on a platform late at night trying to hold it in while waiting for the F to mosey along knows that it wouldn't be such a bad thing.

Install more security cameras.

This is sure to be unpopular among civil liberties advocates, but the use of closed circuit cameras in the London subway system were what enabled their police force to react so effectively in the wake of the July bombings. If New York experienced a similar strike, it would be much harder for authorities to reconstruct the crime.