To the Editor,
First, the link provided in the article is a dud, although I cannot necessarily ascribe blame to the author. Putting the exact title of the article into “Google” will come up with it.
Second, I don’t understand what in the Forbes article the author feels is “must reading.” The pandemic severely reduced ridership. Metro area transit agencies have lost billions in revenue due to COVID. Without helps from the feds, local transit systems would have gone broke. No one can predict when (or if) ridership will bounce back. Blah blah blah. The Forbes article contains absolutely nothing new. But yet and still, the author has nothing to say about the bailouts mentioned in the article, one of which the author specifically pontificated against in a June 5, 2020, opinion piece in this very publication.
The author is against any system expansion until the current system is brought to a state of good repair. Fair enough. Debatable, if not valid. Yet in a July 21, 2020, opinion piece in “Mass Transit” magazine, the author states “[w]hy not extend the NYC transit #6 subway line beyond the Pelham Bay Park station terminal to directly into Co-op City?” Forgetting the sheer magnitude of this project and the cost, which is it? Is the author in favor of expansion or repair?
The author mentions a laundry list of repair jobs needed without providing even a scintilla of detail as to what these jobs are. Then he opines there is not enough money in the MTA five-year capital plan to pay for all of this. How can we possibly conclude without knowing what (the author feels) is needed and what the author feels will be the total cost?
How is it possible to take anything the author says seriously when his opinion pieces contradict each other, sometimes contradict themselves within themselves, and contain virtually no detail?
Nat Weiner
