By Olivia Scheck
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN — The MTA has scrounged up nearly $10 million to install surveillance cameras on Manhattan buses despite some well documented money woes, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The authority will begin installing the security cameras on 400 Manhattan buses during early 2011 at a cost of $9.8 million, the paper said.
The cameras are designed to upload footage to servers stored in bus depots, hopefully deterring criminal activity and helping police to catch perpetrators when crimes do occur, according to the Journal.
Despite steep penalties for offenders, assaults against bus drivers continue to be a problem.
Last week, the New York Post reported that a straphanger punched a bus driver in Brooklyn for driving too slowly.
Another bus rider stabbed a driver in 2008 after he refused to give him a transfer pass because he hadn't paid the fare, according to a report by the New York Times.
Assaults on bus drivers have also taken a financial toll on the transportation system. Last year, 51 bus drivers took an average of 64 days in paid leave after they were spat on by frustrated patrons, the Times reported.
If the new surveillance cameras are deemed successful, the MTA may equip 1,150 additional buses through the contractor, United Technologies Co., the Journal said.
The MTA had begun installing security cameras on buses in 2006 but the system was found to be defective and the company hired to create it went out of business in 2008, according to the paper.
