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One month after the July 2005 terrorist attack on London’s transit system, the MTA entered into a $212 million contract with Lockheed Martin to devise an electronic security program that included the installation of 3,000 cameras, surveillance equipment and access control devices to monitor potential terrorist attacks in the subways and provide police with real-time alarms and awareness of activities underground.
Within a year, funding grew to $307 million, after the MTA requested additional money to construct a command center and purchase antennaes to communicate with first responders, Liu said.
To date, the MTA has paid out $250 million to Lockheed for the installation of 80 percent of the field hardware, including cameras and access control devices, needed to make the system run, said MTA spokesman Aaron Donovan.
Despite the MTA’s claim that significant progress had been made, the money was paid to Lockheed before MTA Capital Construction Senior Vice President Veronique Hakim testified last Wednesday that “Lockheed had been unable to pass the required software system tests needed for them to have confidence that everything could work as intended.”
As a result, the MTA defaulted on Lockheed in April and Lockheed Martin filed a federal complaint against the authority for breaching its contract. Fast forward to last week, when the MTA filed a countersuit against Lockheed, terminating their contract.
Joseph Wagovich, a spokesman for Lockheed Martin, said his team in New York had worked diligently to keep the defense contractor’s commitment to deliver upgrades to the MTA’s electronic security operations infrastructure. The team, however, reached a point when they were unable to continue performing their work.
“They were unable to gain access to installation sites,” Wagovich said. “They were not provided network connectivity, they received little cooperation in the scheduling of the required work and, in general, our customer failed to live up to its end of the agreement.”
Wagovich said Lockheed is conducting an orderly shutdown of the project and will turn over to the MTA all work in progress, as per the contract.
With the matter expected to be resolved before a Manhattan federal judge, with a possible trial date set for the first quarter of 2010, the MTA is meeting with the surety bond insurers to help assess the project and discuss a plan going forward.
But Liu, still reeling from the MTA’s other failed plans, including installing cell phone service in subways and global positioning systems on buses, called on the MTA to abandon the Lockheed project and take real steps to make subways safer.
“Today, we learned that the MTA has flushed $250 million down the drain and has little to show for it,” Liu said. “Rather than trying to resurrect a failed project, the MTA must cut its losses and find real ways to protect passengers and the public.”
