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Who really knows what type of negotiations have been going on behind the scenes. I personally never fully believed a complete L train shutdown could ever possi

Who really knows what type of negotiations have been going on behind the scenes. I personally never fully believed a complete L train shutdown could ever possibly happen. You just can't re-route that many people without creating massive chaos. Brooklyn-Manhattan subway transit is already strained as is. What we do know is that the MTA is controlled by the NYC construction mafia and is purposefully opaque. The MTA likes to give the appearance of losing lots of money so they can get federal aid. The money flows from residents and taxpayers into the pockets of union bosses and their construction company partners in the form of extremely lucrative construction contracts. Bloomberg would probably have handled this crisis better. The proposed complete L train shutdown was unrealistic from the start.

bogomipz 8y ago
>"What we do know is that the MTA is controlled by the NYC construction mafia and is purposefully opaque." No the MTA is controlled by a political mafia in Albany - the MTA board appointees are made by the Governor and approved by the legislature.[1] >"The MTA likes to give the appearance of losing lots of money so they can get federal aid." No the MTA does actually lose lots of money though wastefulness, incompetence, corruption and bad decision making. This is distinct from the interference, underfunding and financial machinations of the MTA made by the state. See: https://www.empirecenter.org/publications/mta-overtime-jumped-84-million-in-2015/ https://www.empirecenter.org/publications/mta-overtime-jumpe... https://www.politico.com/states/new-york/city-hall/story/2015/03/where-the-transit-build-costs-are-unbelievable-000000 https://www.politico.com/states/new-york/city-hall/story/201... https://www.wsj.com/articles/mta-blames-uber-for-decline-in-new-york-city-subway-bus-ridership-1532386865 https://www.wsj.com/articles/mta-blames-uber-for-decline-in-... [1] https://www.city-journal.org/html/who-runs-mta-15281.html https://www.city-journal.org/html/who-runs-mta-15281.html

bogomipz 8y ago

>"What we do know is that the MTA is controlled by the NYC construction mafia and is purposefully opaque." No the MTA is controlled by a political mafia in Albany - the MTA board appointees are made by the Governor and approved by the legislature.[1] >"The MTA likes to give the appearance of losing lots of money so they can get federal aid." No the MTA does actually lose lots of money though wastefulness, incompetence, corruption and bad decision making. This is distinct from the interference, underfunding and financial machinations of the MTA made by the state. See: https://www.empirecenter.org/publications/mta-overtime-jumped-84-million-in-2015/ https://www.empirecenter.org/publications/mta-overtime-jumpe... https://www.politico.com/states/new-york/city-hall/story/2015/03/where-the-transit-build-costs-are-unbelievable-000000 https://www.politico.com/states/new-york/city-hall/story/201... https://www.wsj.com/articles/mta-blames-uber-for-decline-in-new-york-city-subway-bus-ridership-1532386865 https://www.wsj.com/articles/mta-blames-uber-for-decline-in-... [1] https://www.city-journal.org/html/who-runs-mta-15281.html https://www.city-journal.org/html/who-runs-mta-15281.html