(Natural News) It seems New York State has been spending its annual budget on everything but infrastructure. Though infrastructure is one of the most elemental responsibilities, in lieu of patching up crumbling bridges or potholes littering the streets, Buffalo teachers and their families now get free plastic surgery included in their contracts, News Day reported.

Furthermore, New York just passed a law to give free college tuition to hundreds of thousands of students from middle-class families, and a huge percentage of LIRR retirees are receiving disability payments in addition to their pensions. But what about the safety of New York's citizens?

The longer repairs are delayed, the more expensive they become. No matter how big the issue, the nation's aging, crumbling infrastructure has been dropped into a pigeonhole and filed away for too many years. Today, however, the dire condition of our nation's infrastructure can no longer be ignored. Collapsed dams, crumbling bridges, derailed trains, and outdated schools are no longer an exception in the Big Apple.

We cannot wait much longer to fix our nation's crumbling infrastructure

Not so long ago, a New York train derailment highlighted a $120 billion problem in America's aging transportation system, and now stories about another derailment at Penn Station and subway trains being held together with zip ties are making the headlines.

Just days before the most recent derailment in the Penn station, a straphanger noticed that parts of the car were fastened with zip ties.

"Zip ties used on the undercarriage of a #7train..is this standard?" tweeted MsJaya_B. "How often are these checked for wear and tear?"

Zip ties to hold train parts together? How crazy and unsafe can it get? To add strength to her message MsJaya_B posted a picture to accompany her Twitter message.