LIRR Fare Hike?

I read today in the N.Y. Daily News that the MTA is in the midst of battling with its various unions regarding pay increases. The MTA offered no increases for three years citing funding shortages. The unions rejected that offer, went to arbitration where they won an almost 3% increase for each of the next three years.

This is all fine and dandy except there is no money to pay this increase. Except through fare increases. There are already 4% increases scheduled for 2015 and 2017, but those do not take into consideration any employee pay hikes.

The MTA said it might be able to scrape up a few extra bucks via savings in other areas.

Well, I have an idea and it dovetails perfectly with one of my biggest commuter pet peeves. The total mess that is found alongside the tracks. I've ridden most of the LIRR branches at one point or another and they are all strewn with junk, and not all of it is garbage.

I would send teams up and down each train line to pick up all the discarded tools, rails, wooden ties, buckets and left over pieces of metal that are lying around. There are literally tons of wastage to be found along all the LIRR track beds. It appears as if the workers finish a task and simply leave everything there to rust. Don't the workers have to account for all the tools they use? How can they simply leave perfectly good shovels and wrenches lying around?

So I say how about picking up and fixing all these items before they pass along any additional fare hikes to the rest of us.