MTA Board Member: "Why Should I Ride and Inconvenience Myself When I Can Ride in a Car?"

It's a tempest in an E-Z Pass tag teapot! With scrutiny about the MTA's decision to give lifetime free E-Z passes to board members (past, present, even dead) coming from Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, some board members who enjoy the perk plan to fight the MTA's attempt to take away E-Z passes and subway/bus and train passes for board members. It's against the law for MTA board members to take any pay for their jobs; the members would still be able to use the passes for official business.

MTA Board vice chairman David Mack, who has six E-Z passes (though he claims he pays for them out of his own pocket now), explained to reporters why it's important that board members drive and use their E-Z Pass. From the Post:

"If you [the average rider] saw something and called it in, it goes right there," Mack told reporters at a committee meeting, kicking a garbage can.

"Why should I ride [the train] and inconvenience myself when I can ride in a car?" asked Mack, who has six free E-ZPasses.

"It has nothing to do with free or not free. We want to encourage [board members] to use it so if they see something, they'll say something," he said, quoting the MTA's anti-terror campaign.

Really? So all the average riders who ride the subways, buses, Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North and see problems and tell the MTA, their suggestions/calls get thrown into the garbage can? Good to know!

The other point is that many of the board members are multi-millionaires, who can certainly afford E-Z Passes. AG Cuomo's special assistant Benjamin Lawsky told the Daily News, "It is ironic that at a time when the MTA claims to be strapped for money, they can still afford free E-ZPasses and other privileges for board members who are not supposed to be paid."

MTA Chairman Dale Hemmerdinger reversed his position and decided to work with Cuomo's office on the matter; eight votes are needed from the MTA board to approve the tag removal.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Jen Chung in News on June 19, 2008 1:40 PM

Comments [rss]

GM

They get bitter, they cling to cars or free MTA passes or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-oversight sentiment or anti-commuter sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations

Jerky

"David Mack". Can you say first-class asshole?? Or loser who thinks he's important, because his cock is only 2 inches long??

sonyactivision

Of course he needs a car. If he rode the rails, someone would recognize him and shove him off the platform onto the tracks. It's "administrative survival".

Anna_Merkin

Jacque, you're absolutely right about that. Only rubes in the "working class" cling to those ridiculous notions of self-sacrifice and getting no more than one works for...this is a perfect example of that.

glennQNYC

I like the idea in post #12. Seems like a simple, logical solution.

Is there any doubt the same shit would be going on if the congestion tax ever was implemented?

Spirit of 76

There's a word for people like Mack: "asshole."

poopmast

They should make this guy ride the G train for a month. He just might kill himself.

jaycjay

"I'm sure he wacks-off to those thoughts every time he rides his nice chauffeured car to the MTA office."

Which, I'm sure, is pretty rarely.

schadenfreudian mensch

@dr zippy

For the prestige and power my boy. In the end, isn't that what's it all about. Bragging rights to all the other millionaires he hobnobs. You have control over the largest mass transit system in the world with a budget in the hundreds of millions of dollars and the fate on the cost of a ride on 8 million people. I'm sure he wacks-off to those thoughts every time he rides his nice chauffeured car to the MTA office.

ianmac47

So how about taking away the free EZPass and giving them metro cards.

WesleySnipesAlot

Awesome! thanks Zodak. I actually really dig his sound.

AHT

I'm not sure how this guy can "see something, say something" with his head that far up his ass.

zodak

WesleySnipesAlot:

"the guy with the raspy voice and electric guitar/amp strapped to himself" has a myspace page.

dr zippy

With an attitude like that why would Mack want to be on the MTA board?

Jerk Store

"Why should I ride [the train] and inconvenience myself when I can ride in a car?"

THIS is a guy who is one of the most powerful figures in NYC-area mass transit?

Shocking. And yet, somehow, totally expected too.

Brouhaha

"Why should I ride [the train] and inconvenience myself when I can ride in a car?" asked Mack...

Hey, those aren't your only choices...

Get a scooter. :-)

smokedgouda

An article said that this guy Mack has 6 (yes, six) free easypasses registered to him. Unbelievable.

His comments are arrogant and conceited. If he is a board member I guess contempt is all the leadership at the MTA have for the public.

David McCaffredy

Hear hear to #1.

WesleySnipesAlot

I vote Sonny Page and the guy with the raspy voice and electric guitar/amp strapped to himself as F train delegates for the MTA board. I say throw these rich cocksuckers out, and the people elect representatives from each subway line based on ridership numbers! direct democracy is the only way!

JacqueMehoff

only suckers pay for commutation costs, I'll include meals in there too.

the rich will not lay a dime of their own money into anything if they can get away with it.