Passenger Trains > NY MTA: Does wording expand their mission

The LoHud blog of the Journal News has an article about the NY Metropolitan Transportation Authority's new enabling language. The MTA operates or funds Metro-North, Long Island Rail Road, the NYC subway and bus system, the Long Island and Westchester buses, etc and several highly profitable bridges and tunnels.

The MTA has been locked in battle with several local towns over cell towers. MTA has sought to build cell towers, which are often opposed by neighbors, and rent out space to phone companies etc as well as provide bus or rail communication. Local laws and zoning have blocked these efforts. Under new wording inserted into the recent law, MTA would apparently have wide latitude to consider anything that produces income as "transportation purposes", rather than actually provide transportation.  The towns believe the change would allow the government agency to bypass site plans, local facade and planning rules, etc.  MTA often owns stations, parking lots, etc. New garages are seen as a profitable construction for MTA, although several towns have blocked them.

Not surprisingly, Governor Cuomo is in favor of the change, Mayor DeBlasio is opposed. The two have scrapped over use of land, most recently over the storage of propane in a state owned parcel underneath Metro North near 125th street. MN had not been aware of the storage, and the facility was off limits to city inspectors.

"Transportation Purposes"

Didn't CP just fight this out with the Adirondack Park Agenct a couple of years ago?

For those of you who don't ride here regularly, the cell service on the Hudson Line is incredibly bad. I can very seldom maintain a continuous signal for a phone call lasting more than 5-10 minutes when on board.  On the NY Thruway, it is near perfect. Not a good situation if you're trying to tell people they can get work done while they ride the train. 

The NY State Thruway (and the Port Authority and MTA Bridges) make a bundle of money from cell phone signal rental. It was a line item for PANYNJ operations. I'm sure the railroads would love to get a piece of that revenue, as they have enough dead space