Infrastructure maintenance is the Rodney Dangerfield of budgeting:\u00a0 It never gets the respect it deserves.\u00a0 Failing to maintain water tunnels, roads, bridges and mass transit systems can lead to catastrophic outcomes \u2013 both in terms of the impact on people as well as the cost to taxpayers.\u00a0 So, it\u2019s important to keep them well maintained and repaired when necessary.\u00a0 As President John F. Kennedy once remarked, \u201cThe time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining.\u201d<\/p>\n
But too often public officials ignore that wisdom.<\/p>\n
No one cuts ribbons to fix a sewer line, or to lay new asphalt. \u00a0They do cut ribbons to unveil a new bridge.\u00a0 The publicity instinct of elected officials drives them to ribbon cuttings and leaves them far less interested in things like highway maintenance. \u00a0They often only pay attention when their constituents begin to rage against the failing systems.<\/p>\n
When it comes to the New York City mass transit system, the problem is compounded by base politics.\u00a0 Republican governors are rarely interested in investing the billions of dollars needed to upgrade the City\u2019s subways and buses, after all, City voters are unlikely to support Republicans anyway.\u00a0 Democratic governors, on the other hand, can be disinterested in helping since New York City voters are very likely going to support them no matter what.<\/p>\n
But the problem is that the City\u2019s mass transit system has to work, or the City cannot.\u00a0 The City simply cannot handle more cars \u2013 the air is already polluted and the traffic is already too congested.\u00a0 Since the City is the state\u2019s economic hub and accounts for a significant portion of state revenues, the City\u2019s problems are of concern to everyone in the state.<\/p>\n
The subway system is used by some six million riders every day;<\/em>\u00a0when the subway system hiccups, New Yorkers can be stranded, businesses lose money, lives are disrupted.<\/p>\n As long as the system keeps limping along, governors and New York City mayors can ignore the need for big expenditures to maintain mass transit, since addressing them might mean raising taxes and fees.\u00a0 And they can succeed in avoiding the needs, until the problems get so large that they must act.<\/p>\n Of course, waiting means that the costs are more staggering when they finally address the problems.\u00a0 Executives just hope that they won\u2019t be in office when the system needs fixing.\u00a0 The mentality is keep kicking the problem down the road and hope the meltdown is on someone else\u2019s watch.<\/p>\n Governor Cuomo is the latest to get caught being in office when the problems of the New York City system simply cannot be ignored.\u00a0 In advance of the crisis, the governor promised additional resources of which little have yet materialized.\u00a0 He promoted inexpensive improvements \u2013 like USB ports for buses \u2013 which are far cheaper than spending the money needed to make the buses move faster than a snail.<\/p>\n In recent weeks, the problems of the City\u2019s transit system have become front page news.\u00a0 Initially, the governor tried to deflect blame to the city, arguing that he does not control the system that months earlier he said that he did and that he famously shut down in a snow storm<\/p>\n He then tried to present himself as the true champion of reforms.\u00a0 But after six and a half years in office, the public seems determined to hold the governor responsible \u2013 fairly or unfairly \u2013 for the sad state of affairs.<\/p>\n Last week, the governor issued emergency regulations to speed up the purchasing processes to help the City transit system get the materials it needs to obtain necessary upgrades.\u00a0 Maybe this will help.<\/p>\n But all the spin in the world cannot change the basic political and policy problem \u2013 kicking the can on infrastructure needs, for New York City\u2019s mass transit, or Albany\u2019s roadways, or Syracuse\u2019s water mains \u2013 can exact a huge price for elected officials and the public that relies on those services. \u00a0The sun is no longer shining, for this governor it\u2019s past time to fix the roof.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Infrastructure maintenance is the Rodney Dangerfield of budgeting:\u00a0 It never gets the respect it deserves.\u00a0 Failing to maintain water tunnels, roads, bridges and mass transit systems can lead to catastrophic outcomes \u2013 both in terms of the impact on people as well as the cost to taxpayers.\u00a0 So, it\u2019s important to keep them well maintained […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1905"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1905\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1907,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1905\/revisions\/1907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}