March 12, 2006 -- MTA land is so cluttered with car seats, abandoned couches and mounds of trash that the agency would be banged with hefty fines if it were a private property owner, according to a scathing City Council report.

Council staff last summer randomly reviewed conditions around 24 outdoor MTA properties - including elevated subways and commuter rail tracks - across the city.

They rated 16 of the sites, or 67 percent, as "dirty" or "poorly maintained" and singled out 13 as rife with graffiti on trestles, retaining walls and fencing, according to the report for the council's Committee on Oversight and Investigations.

Meanwhile, 18 of the 24 sites, or 75 percent, were plagued with heavy illegal dumping on MTA land and properties adjacent to agency-owned tracts.

Committee Chairman Eric Gioia (D-Queens) said the Metropolitan Transportation Authority must clean up its act.

"These properties are magnets for dumping, graffiti and rodents," Gioia said. "No New Yorker should have to live next to an illegal dumping ground where garbage decays and rots.

"If private landlords leave their property in this state, they're hit with tickets, fines and violations."

The MTA works with the Sanitation Department and other city agencies to clean up problems as soon as they're noticed, said MTA spokesman Tom Kelly.

"As council members know, illegal dumping is a major problem," Kelly said.

The report comes nine months after the committee issued a similar document about the state of the Big Apple's subway stations - which found that more than half are filthy and the dirtiest ones are in the city's poorest neighborhoods.

The new report reviewed MTA-owned sidewalks, track beds, retaining walls, underpasses and bridges and found the cleanest and dirtiest neighborhoods with these properties aren't far apart.

The intersection of 39th Street and 10th Avenue on the D and M lines in Borough Park, Brooklyn, was rated as the poorest-kept site, while those along the same lines two miles away in Bensonhurst and New Utrecht, Brooklyn, received top scores for cleanliness.

The committee's recommendations to the MTA include immediately cleaning up the most neglected sites and installing better lighting and more security cameras in problem areas.

Long Island Rail Road properties throughout Queens also received poor grades, which did not surprise local officials.

"The underpasses and surrounding turf of the LIRR [in eastern Queens] is deplorable," said Sally Martino-Fisher, district manager of Community Board 13.

rich.calder@nypost.com