Larry Penner just doesn’t get it (“Security higher priority than MTA expansion”).
I was just called back to my work location in Brooklyn. I take the Lexington Ave. line.

Any lack of security on the subway plays absolutely no role in my decision to take the subway. I take it because the alternative, driving, is prohibitively expensive and I cannot handle the grinding traffic.

The author proposes a plan to put security cameras on every train and in every station. He states funds must be allocated. Curiously missing from the author’s proposal is the cost, and how it will be paid.

When the author excoriates Cuomo and Hochul and whomever for an unrealistically expensive project he provides detailed cost analysis. Since the author is in favor of a likely prohibitively expensive project (security camera installation can range from $200 to $1200 per camera), no pesky details matter.

The author is against any system expansion until all the NYCTA’s equipment is brought to a state of good repair. Fair enough.

Yet in an opinion piece on these very pages on April 12, 2021, the author is in favor of spending millions of dollars to reopen a long-dormant passageway (“Reopen underground passage from Penn to 34th Street”).

So which is it? The author cites “security concerns” that closed this passageway. The security concerns was the brutal rape and robbery of a woman that took place in the passageway in 1991. So which is it? Is security a concern for the author, or does security not matter because the author is in favor of this project? In a July 9, 2021 opinion piece in “Mass Transit” magazine, the author writes “[w]hy not extend the NYC Transit #6 subway line beyond the Pelham Bay Park Station terminal to directly into Co-Op City?” Disregarding the fact that Co-op City in the Bronx is a huge, sprawling complex and the number of stations needed to adequately service Co-op City is horrifically expensive, again, which is it? No expansion or expansion?

The author is in favor of “service at a reasonable price.” Yet in an opinion piece on these very pages on August 6, 2018: “MTA fare hikes needed.” Which is it?

Two other points are missed in the author’s latest opinion piece. First, as horrific as the underground attack was, it is an anomaly. How many subway trips are made without incident every day, month, and year? And a crucial point the author misses: the vast majority of the subway fleet is air-conditioned. Having ridden the subway when approximately 10% of the fleet was air-conditioned I approve.

But unlike the “old days” windows on the subway can open only a crack. On many lines on the IND and BMT doors between cars are locked for safety concerns. So in the one in ten thousand chance a lunatic releases toxic and/or deadly gas on a car, it is impossible to achieve ventilation and/or flee the car.
Does the author look at his other opinion pieces? Doesn’t he realize how much they contradict each other? Doesn’t he take any pride in them? Apparently not.

Nat Weiner

Bronx