The numbers in today’s editorial in The Times are telling. In Carl Kruger’s State Senate district — one far away from the densely packed Manhattan — 33,000 of his constituents rely on transit on a daily basis while just 6000 drive. And yet, despite this glaringly obvious disparity — and protests in support of tolls — the Senate will not act on a permanent plan to fund the MTA.
In a board meeting this morning, the MTA Board did not paint a rosy picture of the future. While they could be accused of politicking, the transit agency will face a huge budget deficit if nothing is done to rescue them. Sewell Chan reports on the layoffs, fare hikes and service cuts that will come if Albany continues to stall:
With the State Senate balking on a financial rescue plan that would impose tolls on East River and Harlem River bridges to help close a mounting budget gap, officials at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority warned on Friday that if Albany does not act by March 25, they will have no choice but to order steep fare increases, impose “painful” service cuts, and lay off at least 1,100 employees.
“The situation is dire,” the authority’s chairman, H. Dale Hemmerdinger, said at a special meeting of the authority’s board. He described “25 to 35 percent increases in the cost of getting to work” and “serious and painful cuts in service.”
…The Friday board meeting was in large part held to place pressure on Albany to act.
“The Legislature has not been able to reach an agreement on the Ravitch Commission recommendation or any other solution on the M.T.A.’s fiscal crisis,” Mr. Hemmerdinger said. “It’s too soon to know what will happen, but with the March 25 board meeting rapidly approaching, it’s time for the board to refocus on the tough decisions that will have go be made to keep our budget balanced.”
So that’s that. Hopefully, this political move will help. If not, get ready to wait 20 minutes for your $2.50 ride on a dirty subway car. That is, after all, in the minds of the Senate, far better than tolling the precious East River bridges.
11 comments
There’s much more going on here with this POLITICAL mess than just tolling the bridges.
And taxes. And political accountability from the MTA (which has improved greatly lately).
But care to elaborate? This is a rather vague comment. Be careful though; the anti-union crowd has a strong argument to make here too.
how many employees does the mTA have?
If one looks at any of the comments attached to Sewell Chan’s story or any other story recently written about the Ravitch plan, it’s clear that the opposing senators have won the public opinion game. Everyone comments on the wasteful MTA, two sets of books, what happened to that huge surplus, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Paterson has been too weakened to push this plan through, and the State Senate Democrats are not unified enough right now to push anything through.
My guess is that something is done, but it will be a one-year/one-shot bailout done in conjunction with the state budget, and we will be back in this mess next year. Unfortunately, I think the MTA board will have to back the Senate up against the wall by voting to impose the fare/toll hikes and and service cuts before they will act. Also, the one-year/one-shot rescue will mean zero certainty when it comes time to put forward a new capital plan at the end of this year. That’s when the real big deficits will be revealed. And that will likely be the end of a full-build Second Avenue Subway.
I was reading through those comments. It’s really dismaying, and I noted that in the SAS twitter feed. New Yorkers are, by and large, woefully uneducated about how the MTA works, why it’s facing such a huge budget deficit, and what needs to be done about it. Even with The Times’ accurate reporting and the Daily News’ accurate editorializing, people just do not know what’s going on. Because of that, we’re going to get stuck with crappy mass transit and a constrained system for the foreseeable future.
I’m a long-time follower of this blog, but a first time poster here.
As someone who pays a lot of attention to local transit issues, and studying transportation policy in grad school, I’d like to add that the average person really doesn’t want to know the reality of running a transit system. They assume that a billion fare-paying customers a year must automatically yield astronomical revenues, as if revenues existed in the absence of operating expenses. More importantly, they want a comprehensive system that is also spotless and clean, and they don’t want to pay for it.
Most people I talk to (not in my grad school) can’t see past the smoke screen; politicians ultimately control the MTA’s executive board, labor relations rules and revenue collection. They see the MTA as a fully in control of its own destiny. The implication is that the MTA is a malevolent entity that is inefficient and corrupt for its own sake.
The other issue is that politicians can only address a limited number of voices from the electorate at any given time. Most voters want cheap (without considering the implications of underfunding), so that’s what happens. So in a sense, the politicians are delivering. It’s just that this is not a delivery that we the voters should want. But this is what we will get if the State Senate gets its way.
Based on reading the comments on the New York Times page, and as a person who has moved to New York recently (and been a transit advocate in other places) it is shocking to me how little the average person knows about the system.
Its quite clear that someone needs to educate the public about the MTA its budgets and how big it is, the politics of all this etc.
I dont know if their is a project around doing this but I have been mulling starting one myself.
http://www.mta.info/mta/webcasts/archive.htm
This link should be posted prominently on the homepage of SAS…
Perhaps you could create a calendar or some kind of notice for when they are broadcasting live
http://www.mta.info/mta/webcasts/archive.htm
[…] Friday afternoon, I linked to a Sewell Chan piece on The Times City Room blog about the impending cut backs and fare hikes the […]
This just In: 1,100 employees might sound relatively small for a massive organization like the MTA but that’s more than 25% of their “provisional” workforce. Civil Servants keep their jobs, provisionals don’t.