[maxverse]

Also, considering they just got a 68 billion dollar budget approved [1] over the next 5 years, even a small monetary reward would be nice for this. It doesn't need to be a ton of money, but something other than "here's a piece of empty and memorabilia and we'll write a blog post" would be a good incentive

[1] https://ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/news/2024/09/25/mta-board-a...

[exegete]

I think you are misinterpreting that article. The MTA board approved the plan to spend $68B but they depend on the state to give them funds. That’s the amount of money they are asking for based on the projects they want to complete. The state government has to pass a budget to fund that plan (or do something else). Additionally several current, already started projects are on hold due to the “pause” of congestion pricing which was going to be a funding source.