50s: Starting with a storage ring

Chapter 594 Tough Guy - Metropolitan Transportation Authority
In fact, Sun Zhiwei wasn't afraid of them taking a boat; hiring a boat himself wouldn't cost more than a few dollars.

If anyone dares to set up a ferry service under the bridge to make money, Sun Zhiwei will lead an enforcement team to their door the next day and fine them into bankruptcy.

Hmph, do they really think the soon-to-be-established New York and New Jersey Transportation Authority is just for show?

The day after Sun Zhiwei photographed the Francis R. Bruno Memorial Bridge, a series of good news arrived.

First, the court issued its judgment on the three land deeds, and Sun Zhiwei successfully obtained ownership of the three plots of land.

Armed with the momentum of his resounding victory, Attorney Smith stormed into USBank with the judgment in hand.

This time, USBank has really messed up, because federal and state financial regulatory systems, including the IRS, have explicitly required banks to conduct compliance reviews of transactions in corporate accounts.

Davis's use of funds from the airport's corporate account to purchase private real estate was clearly irregular and illegal. If this had been exposed, the bank's reputation would have been severely damaged.

Therefore, under pressure from Attorney Smith, they had no choice but to send over a hundred people to the large warehouse where data was stored to help Sun Zhiwei find the transfer vouchers from that year.

Midway through, Attorney Smith returned to report on their search for vouchers in the warehouse, and it was a truly complicated situation.

It is said that the vault of U.S. Bank is as big as a football field, containing all their transaction documents since 1895, numbering in the tens of millions.

Even with hundreds of people participating in the search, it took them three days to find all eight transaction receipts.

Those eight receipts are the transaction receipts from when Davis misappropriated public funds to purchase eight properties. Three of them have just been adjudicated, and the other five are the evidence he will pursue next.

Meanwhile, at LaGuardia Airport, under the leadership of General Manager David Sheffield, initial results of the reforms are evident.

The entire airport waiting hall has been cleaned and repainted and looks brand new. With the security checkpoints doubled, the throughput has also been greatly improved.

Sun Zhiwei even bought several newspaper pages to have reporters cover the matter in depth.

Both The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal gave high praise to this event, and New York City residents overwhelmingly expressed their approval.

By the time the news spread, Paul Taylor's seven color renderings of the LaGuardia Airport renovation had also been successfully completed.

Upon receiving the news, Sun Zhiwei immediately rushed back to the airport.

In the conference room at the airport, Sun Zhiwei first saw a disheveled Paul Taylor, holding a paintbrush, his eyes bloodshot, his body covered in paint yet his spirits were high.

Sun Zhiwei was startled by his appearance before he even had a chance to see his work.

Fearing he might die on the spot, Sun Zhiwei had to call two female security guards to take Paul Taylor away to wash up and rest.

Only after Paul Taylor left did he see the finished paintings on the wall of the conference room.

Paul Taylor certainly has a talent for modern painting; the finished concept art is quite similar to what he imagined.

The airport, painted with a hyper-realistic sci-fi style, looks just like the real thing.

He quickly called for people to come and get the paintings framed. Once they were all framed into scrolls, he planned to take them to deceive people.

During this period, he has been shuttling between the Department of Transportation and the airport. In the second auction last time, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey got rid of its biggest burden, successfully privatizing approximately 300 transportation facilities.

The total proceeds amounted to US$52.07 billion, which should be the largest gain during the privatization of the Authority.

Although most of these units are not expensive individually, the sheer quantity makes up for it, and many are auctioned as a package.
Now, the Transportation Bureau has sold off most of its properties, leaving only a dozen or so core properties untouched. These are the most valuable deals.

It includes two airports: John F. Kennedy International Airport and Newark Liberty International Airport;

Two train stations: Pennsylvania Station and Grand Central Station in New York City;
One of the world's largest seaports: New York Harbor;

And then there's the largest project: the New York City subway.

It includes 36 metro lines with a total length of 1370 kilometers, 472 metro stations along the route, 6442 metro cars, and corresponding maintenance depots.

Because it has been in operation for 80 years since 1904, its total cost exceeds 100 billion US dollars, and its annual operation and maintenance costs alone are as high as 1 billion US dollars.

However, as we all know, no subway system in any city in the world has ticket revenue that can cover its operating costs.

Literally speaking, every city's subway system is operating at a loss, and the New York subway is no exception. The New York City government has been subsidizing the subway every year since the first subway line was built.

Until 1975, the New York City government was on the verge of bankruptcy due to a financial crisis and had to pass this huge burden to the state government.

Thus, the new department that manages the New York subway, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), was created.

From then on, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority began to engage in all sorts of bizarre practices.

For example, in the subway system, because it is no longer under the jurisdiction of New York City Hall, the mayor's words are not as effective as those of the subway's announcements.

Once, when the city council wanted to allocate funds to build an elevator, the state government turned around and diverted the money to install cable cars at a ski resort upstate.

When Sun Zhiwei was compiling the accounts, he also saw a $3 million handling fee that was handed over to the governor, but he couldn't find out what the handling fee was used for.

This happened during the previous governor's term, and it's impossible to investigate it in detail now. Sun Zhiwei can only have the accountant treat this money as a bad debt.

There is also an $80 'community arts decoration fee' in a renovation project in Queens.

The post-project feedback stated that where a long oil painting should have been hung, only a small picture frame was hung, containing a crayon drawing by a third-grade child.

Sun Zhiwei guessed that the crayon drawing was most likely taken from an engineer's desk and hung up just before an inspection.

Looking at the inspector's complaints in the feedback document, Sun Zhiwei knew that this matter would eventually be dragged out and never resolved.

After all, the value of artworks is hard to measure. You can't say that a third-grade crayon drawing isn't worth 80 yuan. It's just a matter of different levels of appreciation. You can't win a lawsuit anyway.

Similar bizarre incidents are frequently reported, but the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which directly manages the New York subway, simply doesn't care about the media's complaints.

Anyway, they're not under the jurisdiction of New York City, nor do they receive salaries from the mayor. "He who eats another's food is bound to him; he who takes another's money is bound to him." The MTA's motto is "He who has no desires is invincible."

(End of this chapter)