The MTA greenlighted a jaw-dropping $257 million for more than 200 new buses Wednesday \u2014 handing over the keys without soliciting bids from competitors.<\/p>\n
The MTA Board unanimously approved the lucrative, non-competitive contract to purchase 219 new buses from New Flyer of America at a November board meeting.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese buses will replace buses that are beyond their 12-year service life and will be assigned to depots in Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island and are necessary to support the network redesigns,\u201d Tim Mulligan, MTA\u2019s chief of rolling stock, said.<\/p>\n
MTA bus unanimously approved the non-competitive bid at a November meeting. REUTERS<\/p>\n
The new buses will begin to be delivered in the spring of 2027, according to the MTA.<\/p>\n
The approval from the spendthrift agency comes on top of more than $336 million the MTA already spent with New Flyer of America for 449 buses since 2019.<\/p>\n
MTA records show the agency has now expanded the deal to three times its original value, as modification after modification piles on.<\/p>\n
The new buses will start rolling into New York City in the spring of 2027. New Flyer<\/p>\n
The MTA awarded $257 million to New Flyer of America for new buses without shopping around. Bloomberg via Getty Images<\/p>\n
New Flyer\u2019s latest per-bus price, around $1.26 million for hybrids and $905,000 for diesels, is justified by MTA\u2019s procurement bosses as \u201cfair and reasonable\u201d \u2014 though the agency\u2019s analysis was based on vendor-supplied cost numbers rather than public bidding.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are no alternatives,\u201d procurement officials wrote flatly.<\/p>\n
MTA\u2019s ongoing practice of contract modifications rather than open rebids results in less competition and sometimes pricier deals. For example, New Flyer has increased its per-bus cost to about $787,000 for each hybrid bus.<\/p>\n
During the November board meeting, MTA heads also approved a five-year, $40 million noncompetitive contract to Clever Devices for maintenance of software and hardware that supports a new bus radio system and parts of the fare payment software used on buses.<\/p>\n
The MTA also awarded a contract for software maintenance without shopping around. Helayne Seidman<\/p>\n
The contract award followed internal negotiations that trimmed nearly half a million dollars off Clever Devices original proposal but did not include a process to solicit proposals from other vendors.<\/p>\n