Sunday, December 16, 2018

The woes of Public Transport in New York City


A rally was held to introduce congestion pricing in New York City during rush hour to solve the issues of subway funding. I have been watching this subway funding crisis since for so many years but still there has been no headway or any solution to this ongoing crisis. The politicians keep on coming up with various solutions but nothing pans out and becomes the law and thus people are subjected to fares and tolls increase every two years and still it is not enough to fund the subways. I don’t know where all the money goes as people and the subway authority keeps on demanding more funding but there is not enough to go around. The city blames the state but the state does not want to pay or does not have the money to pay for all the funding.  And the biggest of them all is the salary and compensation being paid to the employees.
Nobody has dared to question the salaries of the employees like if they are the holy cow that can’t be touched without igniting a union fight. The Politicians don’t want a fight with the unions and the unions keep on harping about preserving middle class jobs (which are buzz word for keeping the unions intact). Bold steps to address the issues of funding for the subways have to be taken but I don’t see it happening any times soon. And congestion pricing would not do alone and some other better solutions which address the subways without generating revenue from other sources will need to be taken.

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