I don't think I've read the same things as you. Do you have sources for the cronyism and ghost workers?
Also, the tax levels in NYC don't necessarily relate to the levels of subway support (e.g., NY state contributes to the NYC subway).
> I think it's fair to assume that most people expect that when taxes are raised to fund transit, that the taxes raised will be used for transit, not to line the pockets of the friends and cohorts of who raised the taxes.
This is a straw man argument - the implication here is that the NYC subway's sole financial problem is corruption. Is that actually true?
> the implication here is that the NYC subway's sole financial problem is corruption. Is that actually true?
So, that isn't the assertion. The argument that taxes are raised for a project, then being diverted to general funds is a separate issue from the one of corruption, and speak more directly to OP's argument that "taxes don't go down", to which the rebuttal from GP was "Well, taxes shouldn't go down, because maintenance is a thing". If the taxes don't go down, and also aren't being used for the purpose they were raised, you have sort of a shell game.
That said, on the matter of corruption, here are a few quotes from the first source I linked:
> The estimated cost of the Long Island Rail Road project, known as
> “East Side Access,” has ballooned to $12 billion, or nearly $3.5
> billion for each new mile of track — seven times the average elsewhere
> in the world. The recently completed Second Avenue subway on
> Manhattan’s Upper East Side and the 2015 extension of the No. 7 line
> to Hudson Yards also cost far above average, at $2.5 billion and $1.5
> billion per mile, respectively.
> The spending has taken place even as the M.T.A. has cut back on core
> subway maintenance because, as The New York Times has documented,
> generations of politicians have diverted money from the transit
> authority and saddled it with debt.
I remember glancing at that NYT article. It's hard to prove these things, but they only peripherally imply the idea of 'ghost workers'.
I agree that it sounds like social connections are leading to small numbers of contractors, but the takeaway I saw is the lack of political will to manage contracting - these so-called 'soft' costs were on the order of 1/3 of the overall costs.
I didn't pick up on the duration of taxes argument - I see your point there.
That doesn't prove all of the allegations from the earlier articles, for sure, but does confirm that the story wasn't made up from whole cloth.
> “Lokhandwala concealed his receipt of the bribe payments by having the contractors issue checks to shell bank accounts he controlled,” the DOJ said. “In exchange for the bribes, Lokhandwala promised to steer future work to the contractors and to expedite bureaucratic paperwork for their benefit. Lokhandwala threatened to bar the contractors from future projects if they did not continue to pay him.”
Also, the tax levels in NYC don't necessarily relate to the levels of subway support (e.g., NY state contributes to the NYC subway).
> I think it's fair to assume that most people expect that when taxes are raised to fund transit, that the taxes raised will be used for transit, not to line the pockets of the friends and cohorts of who raised the taxes.
This is a straw man argument - the implication here is that the NYC subway's sole financial problem is corruption. Is that actually true?