The New York Times published a piece Tuesday arguing the subway system was never built for the ridership and crowding it's carrying today — old signals, packed platforms, ventilation infrastructure nobody thinks about until it fails. Read it next to our own board and the argument writes itself in dollar signs.

Right now the MTA has six separate solicitations open, each estimated at $100 million or more, and every one of them closes within the next seven weeks. Fan Plant Component Repairs (RFI-001996) is due September 17. Design-Build ADA Upgrades — Package 11 (RFI-001997) is due September 18. PA/CIS: B-Division Upgrade Phase 0 Stations (RFI-001400) is due September 24. Design-Build Renewal of Chambers Street Station (RFI-000021) is due October 14. CBTC signal work across the 6th Avenue Line, 63rd Street Line, and DeKalb Interlocking (RFI-000040) is due October 16. Design-Build Station State of Good Repair — Package 3 (RFI-002007) closes November 3.

Every one of those addresses exactly what the Times piece is talking about. Fan plants keep tunnel air breathable when something goes wrong underground. CBTC — communications-based train control — lets trains run closer together without stacking up behind old fixed-block signals. Package 11 and the two design-build station jobs are stations getting rebuilt for access and condition both. That's not a coincidence; it's the MTA spending against its oldest, most complained-about infrastructure at the same moment the complaints are getting national ink.

MTA NYC Transit alone carries 16 open solicitations on our board right now — busier than any other agency we track — and these six nine-figure jobs sit at the top of that stack. We're not adding them into one number; they're six separate contracts with six separate bonds, and summing them would tell you nothing true. What it does tell you: any design-build outfit big enough to chase one of these is staffing proposals for two or three of them at once, on overlapping calendars, this fall.

The Times says the subway wasn't built for this. Six bid dates say the MTA is trying to fix it on a deadline.