Again, Think Of What $2.5 Billion Could Buy

How about health care for every uninsured New Yorker? Just asking! Because now you have a lame duck mayor spending his waning political capital on a subway stop:

Over the next nine months the Bloomberg administration will likely press the state for an additional $450 million in funding for the no. 7 subway line extension, as cost overruns have left the 1.5-mile project with only one planned station stop.

The city has put up the full $2 billion required for the project. Though with the major tunneling contract slated for approval tomorrow, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has dropped plans for constructing the shell of a station at Tenth Avenue and 41st Street.

The extension has been billed as an essential driver of development for the area west of Midtown, which is one of the Bloomberg administration’s key initiatives.

“The city is coming up with a couple of billion out of the taxpayer’s money — I would argue that it’s the MTA’s responsibility” to fund the station, Mayor Bloomberg told reporters yesterday.

While the city is anxious to have the MTA come up with the money, the state agency has said it is facing major budget deficits and is prioritizing other projects such as the Second Avenue Subway.

Again, that’s a $2 billion investment for a) a convention center that is fully booked to begin with and b) infrastructure for waterfront housing for rich people that doesn’t even exist yet. Oh, and probably an artificial-turf ballfield named for Dan Doctoroff forty years down the line. That would be worth it.