IBO: City, state delinquent in contributing to MTA coffers

When it comes to the MTA and its recent economic difficulties, the media has enjoyed laying all of the blame for rapid fare hikes and fiduciary black holes squarely on the backs of the transit authority. Absent are many mentions of the inadequate city and state contributions to the MTA’s coffers. New York City’s Independent Budget Office would like to see this media approach change and, more importantly, would like to see more government contributions to the MTA.

In a report (PDF) released yesterday, the NYCIBO slams the city and state for shortchanging the MTA and blasts the media for failing to focus on the real financial issues at hand. City Room’s Sewell Chan reported on the IBO’s findings:

State and city subsidies to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority have remained largely flat since 1990, exacerbating the authority’s fiscal pressures at a time when it is threatening to raise fares and facing steep deficits because of the turbulence in the real estate market, according to a new report.

The three-page report…did not make any policy recommendations, but it suggested that the intense news coverage of the authority’s troubled finances has largely overlooked the issue of government subsidies. The authority collects far more revenue from subway, bus and commuter rail fares, dedicated taxes, and bridge and tunnel tolls than it draws from direct government aid.

“It remains to be decided whether new types of subsidies are necessary, or whether existing levels should be altered by adjusting terms that have held some subsides flat for a decade,” the report’s authors, Alan Treffeisen and Doug Turetsky, wrote. “But in order to best decide how to aid the M.T.A. in the future, a common understanding of how much assistance the city and state provide today is needed.”

You won’t hear me disagreeing with this assessment. In fact, I have long called upon city and state officials to stay true to their words and adequately and fully fund the beleaguered Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Of course, politicians love to posture, and while New York’s leaders are happy to give lip service to this IBO statement, none of them will accept financial responsibility for the MTA.

On Thursday, in fact, Mayor Bloomberg illustrated just how the politicians are willing to talk the talk but not walk the walk. “Generally speaking, given the quality of mayors, they should be in control of their transportation systems,” Bloomberg said yesterday, The Times reports.

But when pressed to commit a greater level of city money to the MTA, Bloomberg changed his tune. “We have no money to do that, and it’s up to the state to find the money,” he said.

It’s always up to someone else to find the money, and as the city and state — two financially-strapped institutions in their own rights — bicker over funding, the MTA will turn to its one steady source of revenue: fare hikes. The only way to change this course of events is to convince elected representatives once and for all to show the MTA the money. That’ll be the day.