For $2.1 Billion, We Better Get Expos Up The Ying Yang

One station, $2.1 billion, to be funded by the city:

The city will pay $2.1 billion to build a single subway stop on the No. 7 train extension as part of its deal with the MTA to share a role in developing the West Side rail yards.

MTA board members yesterday unanimously approved a plan to auction the prime Manhattan real estate to the highest bidder that meets a set of yet-to-be-determined criteria set by the agency and the city.

Should the cost of extending the No. 7 train from Times Square west to 11th Avenue and down to 34th Street end up costing more than $2.1 billion, the MTA will be on the line for any overruns, officials said.

MTA Chairman Peter Kalikow said that despite arguing with the city over the particulars, the offer was hard to refuse.

“This is one of the few times we’re getting a project where we don’t borrow or use our own resources,” he said. “Our riders get an extension of their line at no cost to them.”

Under the current plan, the city will pay only for building the terminal station at 34th Street, not the second one originally planned for 41st Street and 10th Avenue.

Instead, a “shell” of a station will be built at 41st Street, in case the agency later decides the extra stop is necessary. Building that station would cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

But Kalikow said the MTA decided the station isn’t needed now.

“This is a lot of money for one stop,” said Beverly Dolinksy, director the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA. “The MTA and the riders are still going to be left hanging.”

And is it just me or does the Javits calendar look pretty busy already?

When “Helping A Lot Of People” Leads To Temptation

A cop has been arrested for stealing the credit cards of people whose deaths he was investigating:

Officer Eduardo Saillant, 38, of the 60th Precinct in Brooklyn allegedly took the cards while taking part in investigations of elderly people’s deaths, a law-enforcement source said.

He used the cards to charge an undetermined amount of money at gas stations and stores such as Home Depot, the source said. And when he was busted, he was also found with a stolen police radio, cops said.

Saillant was arrested quietly on Tuesday and freed on his own recognizance Wednesday. He was slapped with misdemeanor charges of petit larceny, criminal possession of stolen property and official misconduct and a felony charge of grand larceny in the fourth degree, which could get him up to four years in prison.

The first alleged theft occurred on May 3, when Saillant and his partner responded to a report of a death on Ocean Parkway in Brooklyn. There they found the body of Howard Apler, 63, who died of heart disease.

Saillant allegedly swiped Apler’s Visa card and used it to charge items at a Home Depot and for gasoline.

A short time later, the dead man’s sister noticed charges being made to the card and, after talking with relatives, alerted police.

Then there’s this apology:

Richard Acevedo, 42, a close friend of the officer’s, said Saillant is a divorced dad of two.

“Eddie’s a good-hearted person,” Acevedo said. “He tries to help a lot of people, and sometimes helping a lot of people he gets himself in trouble.”

Head In The Unremediated Sand

It’s sort of like not wanting to go to the dentist because you’re worried he’ll tell you you have a cavity . . . except we’re talking about up to 30 million gallons of oil:

Suspicious about long-delayed promises to clean up the massive Greenpoint oil spill, residents have not signed up to let state officials test their homes for cancer-causing vapors.

At a community meeting held Wednesday night by state environmental and health officials, homeowners repeatedly demanded guarantees their insurance policies would not be canceled and their houses would not be condemned if tests come back positive.

“What if . . . we have to vacate?” Ludwig Bauer, 51, asked from a crowd of 200 residents.

Despite pleas from elected officials to sign up for the testing, only 10 residents asked for more information about the program, state Department of Environmental Conservation officials said yesterday.

Some, including Bauer, said they will not sign up.

“I’m terrified,” said Bauer’s wife, Catherine. “What if they say my house is condemned?”

It’s Good To Be Beep!

Parking spaces? We don’t need no stinking parking spaces:

Borough President Marty Markowitz has 13 coveted parking spots in traffic-congested downtown Brooklyn — but that hasn’t stopped him and his staff from using the Borough Hall pedestrian plaza as an illegal parking lot.

The Daily News found up to 17 cars at a time parked on the flagstone plaza in the last three months — even though it’s in the middle of Columbus Park, a city park.

“It is illegal for anyone to park on the pedestrian plaza around Borough Hall,” said a city official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Markowitz’s own black SUV is routinely parked on the sidewalk on Joralemon St. next to a busy newspaper kiosk amid a throng of pedestrians.

. . .

“You don’t need a car,” said [Larry] Johnson. “There’s a bus and train on every corner. They should be subject to the same tyranny as us, and park on the street.”

Shh, Don’t Tell PETA . . . But It Works!

The buzz in Queens is about the new electrified subway trusses that are keeping pigeons away:

Pigeons have long plagued a stretch of Roosevelt Avenue in Woodside, making a home among the trusses and girders under the rumble and roar of the No. 7 train and leaving their mark on the sidewalk, stairs and lampposts.

After a decade of requests, New York City Transit is providing some relief in the form of low-voltage wires that give the birds a little shock.

New York City Transit, a division of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, began installation of the pigeon deterrent at the 52nd Street stop of the No. 7 train in August as part of a pilot program to rid the area of the birds, and the work continues, a New York City Transit spokesman said.

. . .

The preventive measure is comprised of a flexible wire and plastic molding carrying a low voltage that gives a mild and non-lethal shock to the birds, according to the manufacturer’s Web site. The system, called Shock Track, is manufactured by Bird-B-Gone Inc. of Mission Viejo, Calif.

City Councilman Eric Gioia (D-Sunnyside) also lobbied on behalf of the deterrent system, writing his first letter about the pigeons to the president of New York City Transit only weeks after taking office in 2002.

The Woodside location is the first site where New York City Transit has installed this system, which is considered a pilot program, Transit spokesman James Anyansi said.

. . .

Jose Sanchez, a newspapers salesman who has been working just outside the station for the past eight months, said the bird droppings still coating parts of the sidewalk had been a problem for commuters.

“It would fall on many people. It was a problem, but not so much for me,” he said.

He said the system appeared to be working: “There are fewer pigeons in the past five weeks.”

State Assemblywomen Catherine Nolan (D-Ridgewood) and Margaret Markey (D-Maspeth) lobbied the agency for a cleanup.

“I am pleased that the MTA has started to address this serious health and sanitation issue. It is a relief to know that this unsightly and unsanitary situation will soon be fixed,” Nolan said.