Mayor de Blasio rode the subway yesterday, a thing he does occasionally when there's a terrorist threat or political photo opp, or when he just wants to feel like One of the People. But while he's no stranger to subway crowding, it appears the mayor experienced something new yesterday—a subway delay. And according to an email he sent to staffers, he did not like it.
Of course, when we say "new," we mean new for him, not for Us, since subway delays are so common these days it might as well be news when all trains are running with good service. But when faced with a 20-minute delay on the 2 yesterday—a mere hiccup for seasoned L train riders—de Blasio was reportedly quite upset. "We waited 20 mins for an express only to hear there were major delays,” he wrote in an email to staffers and, somehow, a Times reporter. “This was knowable info. Had we had it, we would have avoided a lot of hassles.”
De Blasio's subway snafu couldn't have been timed better. Yesterday, City Hall agreed to match the cash-strapped MTA's $125 million Capital Plan funding request, an amount the agency says is no longer enough to keep the rails from crumbling on the regular. The MTA wants the city to pay $300 million annually between now and 2019, along with an additional $1 billion to fund the Second Avenue line, which may actually be finished one day!
Perhaps this small slice of subway-related pain will loosen City Hall's pockets for a moment. Can we get Cuomo onboard a rush hour 4 train this week?
