We are happy that the newly-installed New York City Transit President Thomas Prendergast has promised to improve conditions at all of the system’s stations.
In an exclusive interview with The New York Daily News, Prendergast, an engineer, discovered the awful conditions of many of the 468 subway stations while making the rounds after returning as president in December.
He admitted that MTA let conditions slip, even at stations that received major overhauls.
Prendergast has targeted Main Street Flushing and Roosevelt Avenue/74th Street in Queens as two of the eight busiest stations set for spit and polish “repairs,” as well as more frequent inspections and repairs in the future.
Okay, that is two out of many in Queens that need upgrading, paint, masonry repairs, ironwork patches, etc.
He also promised to reduce the weekend maintenance work that impacts No. 7 line riders for nine or so consecutive weekends each winter/spring.
We wish that he would look outside the stations too.
The bird poop problem creates serious sidewalk, stairs and bus stop messes at many stations.
Some stations, such as the elevated “J” line, have creosote dripping on the people, cars and businesses below.
More important than applying spit and polish to the stations we want Prendergast to use his executive abilities and restore the planned cuts to the Student MetroCard Program.
Assemblymember Mike Miller has correctly pointed out that a mother of three commuting students would have to spend $267 for the now free monthly passes. If that mother of three earns $400 a week, she would be spending 17 percent of her income to send her children to school. As Miller said, that is simply unacceptable.
Miller and his colleagues in Albany came up with $60 million to subsidize the cost of 500,000 half price MetroCards, only to have the MTA board come back and change the amount needed to $214 million – the cost of a full price MetroCard instead of half price.
The city transit system has much that needs fixing. We hope that Prendergast will be able to make the hard choices and close the budget gaps. Queens riders, students and parents are all counting on him.
