Bloomberg Should Pay For The Extension Himself

I used to live over on the far West Side of Manhattan. Back in those days, Mayor Bloomberg said the city would become anachronistic and tourists would stop visiting if he didn't get a stadium on 34th Street, a whole new swath of real estate development in the West 30's and an extension to the 7 train up 42nd Street and over to the Javits Center.

The city and state didn't want to pay for the development, of course, but Bloomberg said it was a good investment and heck, we have the money anyway if we really look for it..

But of course the MTA didn't have the money. Within a year and a half after the approval of the 7 train extension project, the MTA started screaming about raising fares. Then they raised fares. Now they're screaming about raising fares again and cutting services and making kids pay for their MTA cards to go to school. And guess what project is over budget?

The West Side extension of the No. 7 subway line is
going over budget, engineers warn, creating
another financial headache for the MTA and the city.

Construction costs are "trending above" the $2.1
billion price tag set years before tunneling began,
says a report from McKissack + Delcan, an
engineering firm retained by the Metropolitan
Transportation Authority.

The consulting firm hasn't determined the size of
the developing deficit, but Assemblyman Richard
Brodsky (D-Westchester) called the situation a
"huge, unresolved mess."

"The MTA is looking at a project no one has the
money to complete," Brodsky said. "The city's broke.
The state's broke. The MTA's broke."

The 1.5-mile extension - from Times Square to 34th
St. and 11th Ave. - wasn't in the MTA's plans, but
was sought by Mayor Bloomberg to spur
development. In September 2006, the MTA agreed to
build it after City Hall pledged up to $2.1 billion for
construction.

City and transit officials never signed an agreement
fixing responsibility for cost overruns. At the time,
some transit advocates and officials feared the MTA
would wind up diverting money from more
worthwhile projects to the No. 7 line extension.

Andrew Brent, a spokesman for Bloomberg, said
yesterday, "If it becomes clear at some point that
overruns are unavoidable, we'll address how they
would be covered then."

I think it's simple to address the problem of the overruns.

Bloomberg should pay them himself out of pocket.

He insisted on the 7 train extension so that his real estate buddies would have more of an incentive to develop the far West Side with both commercial and residential real estate. Clearly the $2.1 billion spent on the project already could have plugged the hole in the MTA's budget back when Spitzer agreed to raise the fares and might even still plug some of the budget hole now.

But Bloomberg said we needed the train extension for the good of the city. Now the MTA is broke, the extension project is over budget and the MTA has already scheduled disastrous service and employee cuts.

If Bloomberg wants to continue building the 7 train extension, he needs to pay for the thing himself.

Which is what the op-ed people should have said in the first place back when Bloomberg was clamoring for the project.

But they were too busy calling for the firing of "bad" teachers to notice how over budget and underfunded Bloomberg's pet project for his real estate buddies was.

Pay up, Mike.

Out of your own pocket.