The MTA Has Set Aside $1.1M For ‘Rat Eradication’
Last week, we came across the news that Governor Cuomo had diverted $30 million from the MTA because it was in excess of their budget. That news was a bit worrisome because the way we see it, the MTA needs all the help/money it can get.
Well, that doesn’t seem to have deterred them from redoubling their efforts to take care of a seemingly minor albeit stressful problem: the rats. And it is a real problem. Just yesterday, we enjoyed a highly entertaining video of fully-grown adults screaming and laughing in terror as a subway rat scampered through an MTA-owned A train.
Never one to lose face, the MTA has stepped up and promised to double their ‘rat eradication’ budget.
According to NBC News, the MTA only put $500,000 toward such efforts in 2013. And they got what they paid for: the “federally funded sterilization project” and “heightened efforts to seal the doors of the [system’s] 347 trash rooms” didn’t quite give them the results they were looking for. In response, the MTA is adding $600,000 to its anti-rat budget.
Our favorite MTA spokesperson/amateur actor, Kevin Ortiz , told the network that most of the money will go toward more baiting and rat poison, which has long been the MTA’s way of dealing with this problem. And while we applaud those efforts, we think they need to keep brainstorming. After all, if yesterday’s video proved anything, it’s that our city’s rats are getting smarter.
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