Talk about a government scam. As the Metropolitan Transportation Authority pushes to extract a new $23 toll on drivers for the privilege of entering the dying borough of Manhattan, a new report is being issued by watchdogs at the Empire Center. They are exposing how the MTA’s overtime costs are running to some $1.3 billion a year — a staggering 30 percent more than the MTA hopes to gouge from “Congestion Pricing.” 

It’s further evidence that if the MTA were to put its house in order, the new tolls would be unnecessary. We’ve already noted how the MTA’s failure to enforce turnstile jumping laws is costing the agency $690 million a year. Outmoded work rules demanded by the MTA’s labor unions are adding at least another $100 million a year in costs. Yet the agency has the gall to boost, as they just did, the price of a subway ride to $2.90 a trip.