Why is the MTA wasting money on unnecessary projects like removing benches at West 4th Street station for leaning bars when it’s struggling financially?

The agency won’t even come clean on the obvious goal, namely to stop vagrants from sleeping on the benches.

Nope, it pretends the experiment is about making better use of space.

And never mind that it means nobody gets to sit down.

Of course, keeping homeless from camping out is an excellent goal, as is ending the plague of turnstile-jumping.

But the answers are obvious: Enforce the law.

Hire MTA police to move the vagrants along and to arrest farebeaters.

Instead of addressing important issues like farebeating, cost overruns, and budget mismanagement, the agency continues to spend on ineffective experiments like new turnstiles, security guards, and a million-dollar study on behavioral science.

No wonder its final adopted operating budget rose from $14.6 billion for 2015 to $17.1 billion in 2020 and $19.9 billion this year.

That’s up more than 36% over 10 years — for what? Does anyone see any tangible service improvements?

And its latest budget “plans” are too optimistic to even count as wish lists.

Despite its financial problems, the MTA is requesting an additional $4 billion from city taxpayers over the next four years on top of the funding it already receives from the state and federal governments.

Stifle your laughter: One executive said the MTA deserves the cash because of “great service.”

Yes, the major villains are the politicians that the MTA technocrats must answer to: a Legislature that’s allergic to supporting law enforcement and a governor who doesn’t dare face down the lefty loons.

But it’s the technocrats who keep slapping the public in the face with these feckless, hopeless experiments — which, again, cost real money that the agency keeps complaining it doesn’t have.

Don’t confront the real trouble-makers, but treat everyone as lab rats; cry poverty but spend pointlessly: Keep it up, and someone’s going to suggest you can’t be trusted to run a single train.