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Jose Lugo said the tall metal towers quickly appeared up after the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel tolls booths came down.
“We don’t really know what’s the purpose of this,” he told Carlin.
It’s a $100 million MTA project shrouded in secrecy, with 18 of them for tunnels and bridges.
. “It’s a bit mind-boggling that the MTA is approving $100 million for what appears to us to be big, decorative pylons,” says John Kaehny, the leader of the watchdog group Reinvent Albany. “What we’re asking for is transparency from the MTA.”
CBS2 demanded answers from MTA Chairman Joe Lhota. Carlin: “Some of your own board members say they don’t know the specifics.” Lhota: “The base of these new pieces that are going up include whatever fiber optics are necessary for those Homeland Security items.” In other words, anti-terror technology. Could that one day include facial recognition? We don’t know and Lhota won’t say. “I’m not at liberty to discuss that,” he told Carlin. So as more of these expensive towers rise, the mystery is tucked away inside them.
originally posted by: dragonridr
a reply to: dashen
Most likely chemical detectors DHS is putting them in all major cities.
www.polymersolutions.com...
While the materials presented to the MTA board clearly describe the towers as "architectural" in nature, the MTA now says that contrary to those documents, the towers “host cameras, traffic monitoring and other equipment related to homeland security that would otherwise have been hosted by the former toll booth structures.
The MTA cashless tolling conversion has been discussed for years,” he said. “New York State was one of the last to make the transition and it requires additional police to reduce scofflaws. It was a long detailed process and the security devices and electronics involved many different agencies coordinating for years. It is a great success that will reduce congestion and emissions, streamline our transportation arteries and save drivers thousands of hours in commuting time.
originally posted by: Jubei42
Those things on top look like IR leds, and the way they are setup does not appear to me like they are scanning for number plates. Each one seems to have a slightly different orientation. This feels more like area surveillance. Could be IR grid scanning technology akin to the new facial scanner found in the iPhone X.
Lower half has fiberoptic connections I hear. So lots of data. Interesting. Could be part of existing nodes getting an upgrade, could be new to handle the large amounts of data that are being collected. Hard to tell
originally posted by: dragonridr
a reply to: dashen
Most likely chemical detectors DHS is putting them in all major cities.
www.polymersolutions.com...