The MTA’s Vintage Electrical Infrastructure Causes Alarm

For an agency with a multi-billion-dollar budget you would think that the MTA would have updated technologies, or at minimum, phones from the 21st century, but you’d be sorely mistaken.

MTA Chief Superintendent Joseph Daidone, who manages the MTA electrical room in Harlem that powers several trains, recently admitted to the… inventive ways in which he keeps the electrical room going. 

When various electrical components stop working, which happens often, he is forced to order replacements from eBay, as many of the items are long out of production. The only phone in the electrical room is a rotary phone that was installed in 1969.

“Trying to maintain power systems that were built at the beginning of the Nixon administration is just no way to run a subway system that's moving 4 or 5 million riders a day. It just doesn't work,” Daidone said. 

The fragility of the MTA’s electrical network causes the many interruptions that delays transportation for millions of riders every day. But that’s not the worst consequence of vintage electrical systems; a recent explosion in a Brooklyn substation blew a subway car door off it’s hinges and trapped several thousand riders in subway tunnels for a few hours. And there’s no way to say that such explosions can’t happen again if the system doesn’t get overhauled soon. 

The MTA claims that it needs around $3 billion to properly upgrade its electrical infrastructure, which would need additional taxes (of course) to cover it. 

But maybe instead of imposing new taxes on residents who are already struggling with everyday bills, the MTA and local government should check their back pockets to see how much of their mismanaged funds they can find there. 

photo: MTA: Megan Armas