NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – Mysterious metal towers are popping up at local tunnels, and soon they’ll start appearing at bridges, too.
But even people on the MTA board in charge of the towers can’t say why they’re being used or what’s in them, CBS2’s Dave Carlin reports.
Jose Lugo said the tall metal towers quickly appeared up after the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel tolls booths came down.
“We don’t really know what’s the purpose of this,” he told Carlin.
It’s a $100 million MTA project shrouded in secrecy, with 18 of them for tunnels and bridges. So what are they exactly?
The MTA’s man in charge of the bridges and tunnels, Cedrick Fulton, dodged Carlin’s questions Wednesday.
“I said no comment,” he said.
Some MTA board members, including New York City Transportation Commissioner Polly Trottenberg, say they know too little about the towers – even with half the money already spent and some of the towers already up.
“A lot of the board members felt they didn’t have all the details they would have wanted, myself included,” she said.
Residents suspect there is much more going on in the towers than meets the eye and wonder if they’ll ever really know what’s going on inside of them.
“I’m going to guess that it’s not just a decoration,” Alyssa Renkas, of the Upper West Side, said.
“It’s a bit mind-boggling that the MTA is approving $100 million for what appears to us to be big, decorative pylons,” says John Kaehny, the leader of the watchdog group Reinvent Albany. “What we’re asking for is transparency from the MTA.”
CBS2 demanded answers from MTA Chairman Joe Lhota.
Carlin: “Some of your own board members say they don’t know the specifics.”
Lhota: “The base of these new pieces that are going up include whatever fiber optics are necessary for those Homeland Security items.”
In other words, anti-terror technology. Could that one day include facial recognition? We don’t know and Lhota won’t say.
“I’m not at liberty to discuss that,” he told Carlin.
So as more of these expensive towers rise, the mystery is tucked away inside them.
Lhota said all necessary Homeland Security technology remains in place at all crossings, even the ones that don’t have the new towers yet.
Mystery Surrounds Metal Towers Popping Up In Tunnels & Bridges
I have heard on the news that New York tunnels and bridges are going cashless. All toll booths are being replaced with Easy Pass readers. Drivers who do not have Easy Pass will receive a bill in the mail. Say goodbye to anonymous traveling.
If it were just for road tolls/taxes, then it wouldn’t be such a mystery. $100 million? This is more Big Brother spy equipment, for sure.
if they could tax you by the heartbeat they would.
Does look like plate reading technology
There is also a possibility that these devices can detect radiation , or see into truck trailers for what might be inside
Tunnels and bridges are a terrorist play ground
No matter if domestic or foreign
My guess, they’re Secret DHS Bomb/Radiation Detection Towers.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-newyork-radiation/new-york-police-launch-system-to-detect-and-track-radiation-idUSTRE7720D220110803
NYPD cars get fitted with Advanced Spectroscopic Portal Monitor:
The NYPD is installing state-of-the-art radiation detectors inside three police vehicles that will patrol city streets in search of dirty bombs and other nuclear threats, the Daily News has learned.
The Advanced Spectroscopic Portal Monitors, $450,000 devices given to the NYPD by the Department of Homeland Security, will be placed in a trio of SUVs on Wednesday at entrances to tunnels, bridges and toll booths, police sources said.
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nypd-cars-fitted-advanced-spectroscopic-portal-monitors-radiation-detectors-article-1.425878
Port authority police preparing additional safety and security measures:
https://www.panynj.gov/press-room/press-item.cfm?headLine_id=2611
I’d have to agree with this opinion
As it mirrors my own comment above
My trucks go in and out of steel mills that have devices to read Rad. Levels
So now it’s out in the main stream and on our highways
And they claim we are the paranoid ones!