By denying responsibility for his transit system,” Brad Aaron wrote here last Friday, Governor Andrew Cuomo “is perpetuating a charade that has real consequences for New Yorkers.” That’s for sure. But can we express those consequences in dollars and cents? Can we estimate how much the ongoing degradation of transit service is costing us?
I believe we can. I’ve made a calculation of the cost of slower subways, and the number I’ve come up with, expressed on an annual basis, is $1.4 billion a year.
