Updated 01/21/2009 08:39 PM
MTA Exec. Dir. Addresses Crain’s Breakfast
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MTA Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer Elliot "Lee" Sander addressed his agency's budget issues Wednesday at the Crain New York Business Breakfast Forum in Midtown.
During his remarks, Sander said it's not just fare hikes and service cuts straphangers should be worried about, but also the possibility the entire system could slip back into the disrepair of the 1970s and 1980s.
Sander even showed off a piece of signal equipment known as a relay device, patented in 1912, that was just recently removed from a Queens subway line -- the kind of modernization work that Sander said will suffer if the MTA doesn't get the estimated $28 billion it needs for its next five-year capital rebuilding program.
"If we get less, we will begin to erode the useful life. I mean, we will not be able to replace this. And this speaks for itself. I mean, do you all want to be in a system that is dependent on this? I don't," said Sander.
To fund its capital program, the MTA is asking Albany to pass the recommendations of the Ravitch Commission, including a new payroll tax and tolls on the East River bridges.