Sell the Subways

Governor Spitzer blamed Mayor Bloomberg's department of environmental protection, which is responsible for the sewers. Mayor Bloomberg directed questions to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority — meaning, the governor. The head of the MTA, Elliot Sander, blamed the Bush administration, or at least the National Weather Service. The public advocate, Betsy Gotbaum and the Speaker of the City Council, Christine Quinn blamed the MTA's Chairman, Peter Kalikow. The long-suffering New Yorkers blamed the whole lot of them. If Mr. Bloomberg wants to run for president, he'd best not do it on a rainy day.

The ability of a summer shower to throw the world's greatest metropolis into a steaming gridlock — which is what happened yesterday — is one of the great scandals in this city. "New Yorkers have discovered that the trains can't be relied on when it rains," we wrote on October 26, 2004, in "Beach's Bright Idea." In an editorial called "Sales Tax and the Subway," on March 29, 2005, we opposed a tax increase for new transit projects, writing, "It strikes us that before New York's already hard-pressed taxpayers are asked to pony up for these projects, the MTA's leaders should focus on getting the existing trains to run reliably, rain or shine."

On July 29 that year, we criticized the MTA's plan to use surplus funds for a platform over West side railyards, suggesting "better ways to spend the riders' money" included making it "possible for the subway to run in the rain." In a September 21, 2005 editorial calling on voters to reject the $2.9 billion Rebuild and Renew New York Transportation Bond Act of 2005, we wrote, "The subways still can't run in the rain." In a December 30, 2005, editorial headlined "Contract Contrast," we wrote, "a government monopoly has left us with a transit system that floods in a heavy rain."

It's not only the editorials that have called attention to the problem. "More Rain Could Create Transit Havoc," a September 15, 2004 headline warned. "Drenching Rains Force Subway Lines to Close," was the headline on September 29, 2004. "Torrential Rain Floods the Subway, Causing Power Outages and Delays," was the headline on October 13, 2005. "Downpour Causes Power Outages, Suspension of Some Train Service," was the headline on July 6, 2006.

A few days later, on July 10, a headline promised to take readers "Inside the MTA's Fight Against Subway Flooding." The dispatch began, "If anyone despairs when reading the weather report first thing in the morning, it's assistant chief Peter Velasquez, Jr. the head of the hydraulics department of the New York City Transit Authority."

Despair is a fine word to describe the situation, not only for Mr. Velasquez, but for straphangers and their employers, who suffer millions of dollars in lost productivity. The lost productivity is attributable not only to late-arriving employees but to the time the employees spend, once they finally do get to work, recounting their transit travails to their colleagues. Hence the spectacle of the blame game confronting New Yorkers yesterday.

It's certainly convenient for the politicians. Mayor Bloomberg can blame matters on the state, which controls a majority of the seats on the MTA board. Governor Spitzer can use it to beat up on the mayor's environmental protection department, while claiming that the MTA is an authority that operates independently of his direct day-to-day control. The MTA is still chaired by a Pataki-era real-estate baron who ran the system for years as rain after rain left the city stranded.

So these columns come back to the conclusion we expressed in the first editorial in the Sun, back on April 16, 2002, that it is time to think about returning the city's subways, many of which were built by private enterprise, to private ownership and operation. Only a government monopoly could be responsible for the debacle of a mass transit system in a temperate climate that is unable to operate on a humid day.

With private ownership, different operators could compete over whose system was the most durable to rain. With a free market in pricing, the operators who invest in better maintenance and more modern pumps to counter flooding might be able to recoup their investments by charging higher fares when the competing lines, stingier on their investments, were shut down with tracks under water. Call it congestion pricing underground.

America is a country that has privately owned automobile manufacturers, freight-train companies, bus lines, telephone companies, jails, electrical utilities, nuclear plants, toll roads, universities, newspapers, banking houses, pharmaceutical companies, insurance combines, defense contractors, stock exchanges, to name but a few of the vast systems that are crucial to the functioning of our civilized society. Somehow all these privately owned systems manage to operate in the rain.