By Gary Tilzer
After the MTA’s inspector general exposed yet another flagrant waste of taxpayer money, the NY Post reported on the latest glaring example of the authority’s egregious mismanagement of public funds. This time, the MTA squandered a staggering quarter of a billion dollars on station intercoms that became entirely ineffective due to thousands of prank calls—despite the fact that cell phones, already in the hands of every rider, could serve the same safety purpose at no additional cost to the MTA. Ironically, this amount of wasted taxpayer money is roughly equivalent to the first year’s projected revenue from the controversial congestion pricing tax, further highlighting the continuing extra cost to New Yorkers and the economic damage to the city from the MTA’s reckless spending.
Ironically, the Post‘s call for fiscal responsibility comes from a newspaper that has published countless articles exposing the MTA’s long history of squandering billions of taxpayer dollars over the years. While the Post and much of the New York City media routinely blame the MTA for poor service and waste, they overlook the deeper structural interference created by elected officials.
The Post headline condemning the wasteful subway intercom project places blame squarely on the MTA, but in doing so, the paper inadvertently falls into the gaslighting trap set more than half a century ago by Governor Nelson Rockefeller. As part of his reelection campaign, Rockefeller sought to deflect responsibility for the collapse of the once-thriving Long Island Railroad system by creating a bogus authority to deceive both the public and the press. This tactic allowed him to shift blame for declining transit service while secretly maintaining control over the system through board members he personally appointed.
The Post and the rest of New York City media are abdicating their journalistic duties by failing to inform the public that the MTA was deliberately created as a political shield for elected officials. This design protects them from accountability for the MTA’s poor transit service, wasteful spending, mounting debt, and disastrous urban planning. By overlooking this crucial context, the media allows the true culprits causing a meltdown of the city’s subways—elected officials—to escape a political price, while continuing to mismanage the city’s transit system.
Elected officials have turned the MTA into a tool for advancing their own political agendas—funding vanity projects, keeping state and city subsidies artificially low, and striking lucrative wage deals with politically powerful unions that block necessary work rule reforms. In pursuit of these goals, they have transformed the MTA into a debt-ridden “borrowing junkie,” relying on ever-expanding loans and revenue schemes like congestion pricing to stay afloat. In 2010, the MTA faced a budget deficit of $400 million. Today, 15 years later, that deficit has exploded to nearly $100 billion, a staggering rise that underscores the authority’s worsening financial instability and years of political mismanagement. Despite a 2022 audit from NYS Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, which warned of the dangers of the MTA’s growing dependence on leveraged borrowing, both the media and elected officials have turned a blind eye to Albany borrowing scheme, allowing this reckless path to continue unchecked.
Like any addict, the MTA is in desperate need of an intervention. Unfortunately, the media’s failure to provide historical context and their lack of understanding about the structural issues behind the MTA makes it unlikely that they will pressure elected officials to reform the agency. Without this critical awareness, the media is failing to equip voters with the information necessary to elect leaders who will either overhaul the MTA or dismantle it altogether.
Astonishingly, the only realistic hope for rescuing the subway and revitalizing the city may rest with President Trump, who has already expressed a keen interest in addressing New York City’s transit crisis. His leadership could spark a groundbreaking shift, bringing forth bold, innovative solutions like Elon Musk’s proposed DOGE takeover to tackle the MTA’s chronic mismanagement, waste, and overspending. With Musk’s expertise in cutting-edge technologies—such as the driverless cabs already operating in San Francisco—it’s entirely plausible that New York’s subway system could see driverless trains before the end of this decade. Additionally, a state-of-the-art closed-circuit video system could be implemented to combat crime, homelessness, and mental illness on the subways (see footnote 2), ushering in a transformative new era for the city’s transportation infrastructure and setting a global standard for innovation and safety on NYC subways.
In 1965, facing a tough reelection battle partly fueled by the collapse of Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) service, Governor Nelson Rockefeller successfully pushed the New York State Legislature to create the MTA. This new public authority was tasked with purchasing, operating, and modernizing the LIRR. Rockefeller, who came from a family skilled in creating monopolies, deftly outmaneuvered both Mayor John Lindsay and Robert Moses, head of the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, who both sought to retain city control over its transit system. By 1968, Rockefeller pushed the state lawmakers to place the city’s subways and buses under MTA control, a move that served his political interests but set the stage for decades of mismanagement. What was initially conceived as a political maneuver to secure Rockefeller’s reelection has since evolved into a bloated, inefficient bureaucracy—an unaccountable “piggy bank” controlled by elected officials, fostering waste, mismanagement, and bankruptcy. The MTA has caused significant economic harm to the NYC economy, with residents and tourists alike avoiding the subway due to out-of-control crime. If the MTA’s Ponzi scheme congestion pricing moves forward, it threatens to deliver a final, crippling blow to the city’s already fragile economy, which has already seen a half a million taxpayers’ leave the city along with a trillion in Wall Street businesses.
In the early 2000s, the late Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, often hailed as Albany’s “Conscience” by the New York Times, was the last elected official to make a serious push for reforming the MTA. Known for his relentless advocacy and tireless efforts to expose the rampant abuses of power by state authorities, Brodsky sought to bring accountability to the MTA, by demanding greater oversight of its budget and curbing the agency’s habitual overspending on development projects. He believed that public authorities like the MTA had become metaphorical piñatas, continuously battered by the public and media, while elected officials, unions, bond dealers, and contractors benefited or profited with the unaccountable authority at the public’s expense. Brodsky’s work was an attempt, a call for reforms that would place accountability back where it belonged—on the shoulders of elected officials, unfortunately failed.
Yet, despite his courageous leadership efforts, no one today seems to know about or care about Brodsky’s attempts to amend the Public Authority Act of 1921. This law, which shields elected officials from direct responsibility, allows them to appoint board members who oversee the MTA and state’s other nineteen public authorities, thus enabling them to avoid blame for the MTA’s persistent failures. Brodsky’s push to dismantle these structural protections and hold decision-makers accountable for transportation has largely been forgotten by the current leaders of the press, City Hall and Albany.
The true culprit behind the MTA’s financial crisis is not the powerless, transient leaders of the agency—often appointed more for their public relations skills than for their ability to manage a complex transit system—but the elected officials who use them as puppets to deflect responsibility. Today, despite the half-a-billion dollars expected to be generated by congestion pricing, the MTA’s crippling $100 billion debt remains largely unaddressed, and several fare hikes are already on the horizon during the years. Brodsky’s warnings about the long-term consequences of this political structure have gone unheeded, the lack of political transparency that Brodsky warned about has been a major factor in causing the subway’s crisis and the city’s weakened economy.
When Brodsky left office in 2010, the MTA was dealing with a projected budget deficit of $400 million, which it managed through deferrals and reserves. However, with the decline of traditional news media, the MTA has spiraled into deeper financial instability without the knowledge or understanding of the public. Over the past two decades, elected officials borrowed tens of billions of dollars to fund operating expenses, over-budgeted vanity projects, and politically motivated labor agreements, pushing the MTA to the brink. The New York Times reported in 2017 that “efforts to add new lines have been hampered by generous agreements with politically powerful labor unions and pay to play private contractors that have inflated construction costs to five times the international average.” These reckless decisions were compounded by the failure of the media to pressure elected officials to properly use new technology in the trains (see Footnote #2) to reduce crime, homelessness, and mental illness, all of which are making the subways unusable to many New Yorkers and tourists.
The COVID-19 pandemic further exacerbated the MTA’s woes, with ridership plummeting by 30-40% due to the shift toward remote. The result of these compounded missteps, effective crime fighting, mismanagement, and out of control borrowing, is not only causing the financial collapse of the MTA, which will further hurt its ability to effectively serve the public, exacerbating an already fragile city economy.
The lack of political accountability, compounded by the media’s failure to place blame for the MTA’s melt down, has allowed decades of mismanagement and unchecked spending to continue. By failing to expose the structural flaws within the MTA, the media has inadvertently facilitated a narrative controlled by politicians who manipulate public perception for their own gain. Elected officials, aware of the public’s limited understanding of who controls the MTA, have skillfully used the agency’s failures—such as homelessness, crime, and flooding in the subway—as convenient talking points during reelection campaigns attacking the MTA. By shifting blame onto the MTA, they deflect responsibility for their own role in the system’s decline, all while scoring political points.
Elected officials are more concerned with securing reelection than taking responsibility for the subway system’s dysfunction, and have cultivated a culture of mismanagement at the MTA. The agency’s chairman, chosen more for his public relations acumen than his expertise in urban planning or transportation, embodies this culture of incompetence and waste. Decades of reckless spending, corruption, and a continuous cycle of borrowing have turned the MTA’s subway system—once the healthy lifeblood of New York City—into a toxic dump. The ongoing crises of crime, mismanagement, and homelessness in the subway system are not just undermining public safety but are also inflicting severe damage to the city’s economy. Empty office buildings, a decline in tourism, and the shuttering of restaurants, stores, and Broadway shows all serve as stark reminders of the broader economic toll caused by the MTA’s failures. The implementation of congestion pricing will only accelerate this decline, driving more businesses and residents out of the city and increasing costs for those who remain.
New York’s elected officials have severely damaged the subway system, which is essential to the city’s economy and the daily functioning of its residents. The subway provides crucial access to jobs, schools, healthcare, and cultural hubs across all five boroughs, serving as the backbone of the city’s workforce—particularly for those in lower-income and essential roles. It is a vital engine for commerce, tourism, and business, driving the local economy and ensuring New York City’s continued global competitiveness. The subway’s ability to move people swiftly and safely is indispensable to maintaining the city’s reputation as a dynamic, fast-paced urban center. Without a fully functional transit system, the city’s vibrancy, productivity, and capacity to attract and retain businesses are all at risk, threatening the very foundation of NYC economic growth and competitive edge.
The army of press agents on the MTA’s payroll is not focused on addressing the public’s concerns about service failures. Instead, their role is to deflect attention from the agency’s rampant overspending, mismanagement, and poor planning. With strategic, distraction-heavy press releases announcing new programs, they act as a shield for the true decision-makers behind the MTA’s crisis: the elected officials. A 2015 New York Post article detailing the cost overruns on the reconstruction of the Fulton Street subway station, which saw its price tag nearly double to $1.4 billion and its opening delayed by seven years, made no mention of the elected officials who were responsible. Similarly, a 2024 Post article highlighted crime and vacant stores at the same billion-dollar station, yet again failed to point the finger at the politicians accountable. According to WNYC, none of the elected officials present at the Fulton Station opening in 2014—including Congressman Jerry Nadler, Senator Charles Schumer, and the late Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver—were willing to comment on the MTA’s massive budget deficit in its proposed 2015-2019 capital budget plan. Their silence speaks volumes, revealing the political collusion, amplified by the press, that continues to protect elected officials from accountability for the MTA’s wasteful practices.
The press rarely questions elected officials about the colossal overspending by the MTA, opting instead to blame a faux authority created by politicians to shield themselves from scrutiny. Take, for instance, the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) extension to Grand Central Station. Originally slated to open in 2009 at a cost of $3.4 billion, the project ballooned to an astounding $13 billion for just two miles of track. Similarly, the 7-train extension to Hudson Yards has become the world’s most expensive subway track at $2.5 billion per mile, while the 24-block extension of the 2nd Avenue Subway is costing $4.4 billion, averaging $2.5 billion per mile. Meanwhile, the MTA wasted $31 million building an unnecessary extra staircase at Times Square and squandered $4 billion remaking the Fulton Street Station in Manhattan. Former Comptroller Stringer’s audit revealed pervasive mismanagement and waste in the MTA’s Access-A-Ride program, leaving tens of thousands of New Yorkers stranded, with manipulated pick-up and drop-off times designed to present a false picture of performance. Meanwhile, billions were spent on lavish station makeovers and vanity projects that did nothing to improve service or reliability, all while the trains continued to rely on a 1930s-era signaling system with deteriorating, cloth-covered cables, as exposed by The New York Times in 2017.
The MTA continues to struggle with its outdated and inefficient camera system, a failure that has contributed to rising crime, homelessness, and attacks by the mentally ill across the subway system, preventing the city’s economic recovery. Despite spending billions since the1990s, the MTA has yet to implement a fully functional closed-circuit television (CCTV) system in the subways, which could play a critical role in preventing crime, homelessness, and removing those suffering from mental illness, ensuring public safety. Currently, most of MTA’s cameras only connect to tape recorders, viewing footage from those cameras requires an extra step—leading to inefficiencies, extra costs, and wasted man hours, that hinder law enforcement response.
In 2019 alone, the MTA received over 12,000 requests for video footage, requiring more than 53,000 man-hours to process. This bureaucratic backlog underscores the incompetence of the current system, which often fails to provide real-time support during emergencies. Tragically, this was evident during the 2022 shooting by Frank James on the N train at the Sunset Park 36th Street station, where the cameras, if working properly, could have potentially prevented or mitigated the crisis. Instead, they provided only post-crime evidence on other N line stations (the cameras at 36th Street were broken), after ten people were shot and over a dozen others injured.
The MTA’s failure to modernize its camera system contrasts sharply with the success of the London subway system, which has had a live CCTV network in place for over 20 years. Installed initially to catch terrorists who blew up their subway system in 2005. London’s system now monitors virtually every station and train in real time, enabling authorities to stop crimes before they occur. This proactive approach, driven by a robust, live-connected CCTV network, has greatly contributed to reducing crime and terrorism on London’s transit system.
Given the rapid advances in technology and the growing threat to public safety, it’s time for the MTA to embrace a similar system. The new NYPD Police Commissioner, Jesica Tish, who used to work with the NYPD on technology, should spearhead a modern, live CCTV system for the city’s subway that can connect to every NYPD officer’s smartphone. The NYPD close circuit camera network, if far advanced, of the MTAs can already connect pictures of criminals right after they commit their latest crime. The MTA should also consider reaching out to tech innovators like Elon Musk to take control of NYC’s subway camera network, his star link satellite system can connect all the station cameras without costly hard wiring and install cameras on every train with live, closed-circuit network system that can be monitored in a new COMPSTAT Transit NYPD headquarters.
With the right leadership and technological upgrades, New York City’s subway system could finally match the capabilities of global counterparts like London, addressing both the escalating safety crisis and rampant fare evasion. Fare evasion alone costs the MTA an estimated $119 million annually from turnstile jumping, not to mention the billions lost as New Yorkers are increasingly afraid to use the subway due to safety concerns. By implementing closed-circuit TV (CCTV) systems, the MTA could enable real-time monitoring that directs police and mental health professionals to individuals in crisis or those committing crimes, ensuring a faster, more efficient response. Additionally, facial recognition technology could automatically identify fare evaders, eliminating the need for costly guards at turnstiles and freeing up valuable police resources. These high-tech advancements would not only reduce crime but also improve the overall experience for riders, reopening the subway system to over a million New Yorkers and tourists who need and want to use the transit system.
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