Jay Has A Dream……
They say that being a kid is the best time in life as you are filled with a lot of dreams & energy. When it came to dreams, it was always about dreaming for the stars & how anything is possible. When you become older & wiser, you start to factor in a thing called reality.
Obviously MTA CEO & Board Chairman Jay H. Walder is an adult but he has a dream & will do whatever it takes to accomplish it even if reality is against him. His dream, a cleaner & faster mass transit system. Eliot Brown of The Observer has more:
The perennial attempt to hike subway and bus fares is one of the more ritualistic political dances in New York. Any leader of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority who ever tries logic (fares, adjusted for inflation, are virtually the same as in the mid-1990s) is inevitably met with a blast of criticism. Politicians decry the move. Riders voice disgust. Protests ensue. The M.T.A. just doesn’t get what it does to the little guy.
Such is the position of Jay Walder, the M.T.A.’s still-new leader, who has many an innovative, rider-friendly idea (Countdown clocks! Cell-phone service underground! Fast buses throughout the city!), but who has spent much of his nine months on the job cutting costs, scouring for efficiencies, rolling back service and, now, increasing fares.
On Wednesday, July 28, the M.T.A. chairman and CEO is expected to plunge into an inevitable public swamp when he unveils the agency’s latest set of hikes, to be implemented in January, including a $10 jump, with new restrictions, for the monthly unlimited card-a 7.5 percent overall increase that Albany legislators initially gave a nod to last year.
Click here for the complete story.
Sadly with the way our elected officials treat the MTA, it is a pretty good bet that it would take years upon years until our system is at the level envisioned by Jay. While they are not the only culprit, as employee costs, bloated management, & budget overruns on capital projects are a factor, it is clear that their decades of abuse have hurt the agency. Hopefully things change but it is only fair if I & many others are skeptical.
xoxo Transit Blogger
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[…] if they ever expect to maximize the effectiveness of its overall system or better yet achieve the dream by MTA CEO & Board Chairman Jay H. […]