Irony abounds. After more than 15 years of neglect, the MTA finally scraped and brushed off most of the filth in the Roosevelt Island station. Now, they want your appreciation.
by David Stone
The Roosevelt Island Daily News
It’s sorta like the husband who never helps around the house then, one day, runs the vacuum cleaner. The rugs cleaned, he wants a gold star. It’s comical if played right but dreary in reality.
In fairness, part of the hoopla was over it’s being the 100th in a project of sprucing up the MTA’s subway stations. There are over 420 stations in the system. Is it really time for applause already?
The Roosevelt Island Subway Station Cleaned?
Frankly, it you hired someone to freshen up your house and they did it this poorly, you’d fire them. The instant you walk in, it’s apparent. The skylight designed for letting sunlight splash the station with a golden glow is still caked with filth.
But what the hell? Most of us don’t look up. We look down… and see the escalator step grids caked with grim and greasy filth. Yes, the walls are cleaner. Most of the black mold is gone, but still…
!5 years after workers tore open the overhead panel in the middle of the station, searching for leaks, the MTA finally sealed it. But the mold remains caked on it and on the brick barriers between tracks.
In a video shared on Bronx Channel 12, MTA officials boasted of their commitment to cleaned subway stations, but the here’s the thing. This is the same outfit that left the place filthy for decades. At best, this was remedial, and it lacked two things.
What’s missing here?
If the MTA wants credit for cleaning their own station, shouldn’t they acknowledge their longstanding negligence? Riders put up with stink and filth for decades. And if they don’t apologize, what makes you think they won’t go right back to the script they’ve always had?
They cleaned the station, but now, it’s pure PR. Negligence will return just as sure as a neglected car rolls out of the wash still spewing exhaust fumes. At the core, the MTA has no commitment to a daily positive experience on its subways. Never has. Never will.
Seeing the most egregious filth eliminated cheers regular subway users as it should. Cleaned, the station smells better and looks better. But absent a commitment to maintaining it that way, the good feelings will wash away by the end of winter.
This is routine with public projects and new construction. The officials gather around, slapping themselves on the back, expecting kudos,. Politicians flock to the ribbon-cuttings with photo ops, and then, they go away.
Enjoy it while you can and where you can. The next station will be filthy, and so will this one soon enough.
An Emergency, Apparently
Read the full article to learn more about this story.
This also rings true to the accessibility projects that they have supposedly put a pause on after congestion pricing was paused (it’s definitely not cancelled). They want other people’s money to fund something that they have moral if not legal obligation to achieve.
To figure out, you have to sort to sort through all of the PR, then try to figure out what they’re doing and for whom.
Thanks for your comment.
I have so much criticism of the MTA but this article is so snarky! Does it really make you satisfied to write these? How is it productive? They could do whatever it is you want and you would just throw dung from the sidelines about something else.
Well, no, not really, but thanks for your generous thoughts. Does it make me satisfied? Yes, of course. Why else would I bother? How is it productive? Who said it was productive? I didn’t. You’re judging on your own scale, which is fine. Your final conclusion is, of course, ridiculous. Thanks for stopping by.