“Personally, I could think of a better use for the $58 million, like fixing the subways,” said MTA board member Polly Trottenberg, who is also Mayor Bill de Blasio’s transportation commissioner. | Getty MTA: Bridge and tunnel towers to cost $100M

The MTA’s plan to install art deco "Gateway" towers at all of its bridges and tunnels will cost $100 million, according to Cedrick Fulton, the president of the MTA’s bridges and tunnels division, who revealed the number on Monday after persistent questioning from board members.

“The entire program, if we were to do it around the entire authority, was about $100 [million],” said Fulton.


So far, he said that the MTA has spent between $42 and $47 million to install the roughly 30-foot Gateway towers at the entries to the Brooklyn Battery and Queens Midtown tunnels and the Triborough Bridge. That means that $58 million has been budgeted for the project, but has yet to be spent.

“Personally, I could think of a better use for the $58 million, like fixing the subways,” said MTA board member Polly Trottenberg, who is also Mayor Bill de Blasio’s transportation commissioner.

A spokesman for the MTA did not immediately respond when asked if the MTA intended to go ahead with the additional $58 million expenditure.

The MTA and Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who effectively controls it, have not issued any press releases about the towers, which rise roughly 30 feet into the sky at the entrances to the MTA properties.

The towers bear the state seal, snazzy silver stripes and light beacons.

Originally, the MTA told board members the towers were “architectural” in nature and that their purpose was to “create a unifying theme for the various bridges and tunnels,” part of Cuomo’s effort to improve the operations and appearance of the facilities.

The MTA conveyed that notion to board members in board materials, where the towers were presented as amendments to preexisting, unrelated contracts. Their overall cost was not easy to discern.

After Reinvent Albany, a good-government group, sent a letter to the Authorities Budget Office requesting an investigation into the tower program, and POLITICO began asking about the towers, the MTA said they were actually functional in nature.

They “host cameras, traffic monitoring and other equipment related to homeland security that would otherwise have been hosted by the former toll booth structures,” said MTA spokesman Shams Tarek at the time.

Asked why the MTA didn’t convey that to the board, Tarek said, “Board staff summaries and press releases aren’t comprehensive blueprints and not all elements of a project are detailed in them, and security is usually not discussed in detail.”

The cost of the whole program remained a mystery until Monday, when Trottenberg and fellow MTA board member Veronica Vanterpool pressed Fulton on the issue.

“How much did those towers cost?” Trottenberg asked. “I’m still confused about it, maybe I shouldn’t be, but I feel like I am, having re-pored through all the materials. I still didn’t feel like I could totally piece it together. And I will say at the time that we voted on those items, I certainly did not understand them to be these standalone enormous towers with what appears to be a price tag in the tens of millions.”

As the committee meeting was getting underway, MTA Chairman Joe Lhota made a personal appearance in the press room to tout a new online dashboard that will give straphangers more, and better, information about the performance of particular subway lines.

The straphangers, he said, "deserve to get as much information" as possible.

As he spoke, Reinvent Albany Campaign Director Liz Marcello was testifying to the board about the Gateway towers.

“[T]his board has a fiduciary duty to the MTA and people of New York to fully examine and understand the matters before it, and to be fully informed before approving contracts and spending,” she said. “Being fully informed means that the MTA board should know the total cost of projects.”