Are Countdown Clocks REALLY needed? Wouldn't the money be better spent cutting the budget defceit down?
Countdown clocks pay for themselves by encouraging ridership; it's a quirk of human psychology that people are content to wait around three times as long if they know exactly how much longer they have to wait ("the next train will arrive in 8 minutes"), as opposed to only having only a rough idea how long the wait will be ("this train runs every 12 minutes, so you will wait a random interval less than 12 minutes").
Unfortunately, in the current political/financial climate, this means that the most likely way they pay for themselves is by enabling service reductions in the off-peak, with minimal pain to the riding public. Still, minimal pain is just that, minimal: nonzero, but as low as possible.
That said, it would be a lot easier for the MTA to balance its books if the state legislature would refrain from stealing its money. As long as Albany feels they can do that with no repercussions from the voting public (or attention from the media), there's almost no point in finding ways for the MTA to save money, since Albany can just raid them for spare cash whenever they please.