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Blizzard Costs MTA $30 Million
By
John Del Signore
Published Jan 25, 2011
Modified Jan 25, 2011
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By
John Del Signore
Published Jan 25, 2011
Modified Jan 25, 2011
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Total of lost revenues incurred by the MTA due to last month's blizzard? $16 million. Cost of all that overtime? $14 million. Leaving New Yorkers stranded on the subway for hours? Priceless. All told, the blizzard ended up costing the MTA somewhere in the neighborhood of $30 million. But hey, act of God, right? City Council Transportation Chair James Vacca doesn't think so—he's says all that could have been avoided if the MTA only had its shit together. Vacca, you ask the impossible.
“If they had acted sooner with more intensity of response, their overtime would have been less and more people would have been able to get on and use mass transit,” Vacca said after yesterday’s MTA committee hearings, amNY reports. It's interesting to note that the MTA spent about $5 million less during the back-to-back snowstorms last February, with far less revenue going to overtime (just $8.3 million, according to amNY). This time around, the MTA and other city officials have been widely criticized for, among other things, sending buses out into the storm, which resulted in numerous streets getting blocked by abandoned buses.
After yesterday's City Council blizzard hearing in the Bronx, the MTA's Chief Financial Officer Robert Foran told reporters, "We lost the revenues — that will hurt — but we had some positive things … some of the taxes came in stronger than we thought." That's good news, because there's still a lot of winter still to come! And you've got one more chance to complain about the city's Blizzageddon shortcomings tonight, when the Blame Game Blizzard Circus convenes under the big top at IS 278 in Marine Park in Southern Brooklyn at 6 p.m.
Tagged
blizzaggedon
blizzard 2010
buses
MTA
mta budget
subway
John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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