As the MTA is facing its worst financial crisis in decades, New York’s politicians have begun to speak out in droves. These comments could serve as a primer in assessing politicians’ attitudes toward transit. For example, we’ve already seen that John Liu, the chair of the City Council’s Transportation Committe, doesn’t get it, but what about a few other big names?
Curbed has Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz’s reactions to the East River tolling proposal:
“Haven’t we been down this road before? I have said it before and will say it again: East River tolls are discriminatory, impractical, and impose an unfair ‘tax’ on the outer boroughs—especially Brooklyn. Three of the four un-tolled bridges—the Brooklyn, Manhattan and Williamsburg…Additionally, even with advances in E-ZPass technology, tolls will create even worse traffic backups for communities such as Downtown Brooklyn, Williamsburg, DUMBO, and the ‘Brownstone Belt’ of Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, Brooklyn Heights and Boerum Hill, which already suffer.”
I hate to break it to Marty, but a financially crippled MTA would be far, far worse for Brooklyn than some tolls. In fact, two of the three lines up for service cuts run into Brooklyn too and serve many more people than the bridges on a daily basis. Unsurprisingly, Marty doesn’t get it.
But not everyone is as blind to reality as Markowitz. Richard Brodsky, a Westchester assemblyman who oversees the MTA, gets it, as William Neuman noted in The Times:
Assemblyman Richard L. Brodsky, a Democrat from Westchester County who is the chairman of a commission that oversees the authority, said he was worried that the authority’s long-term spending needs would be forgotten in a discussion of its more immediate fiscal woes.
“You look back at the generation of leaders in the ’60s and ’70s and say, ‘How could they let the subway system deteriorate as much as it did?’ ” Mr. Brodsky said. “We are going to be faced with precisely the choices that they faced.” He added, “The real question here is do we repeat those mistakes?”
As Brodsky noted, the region cannot afford to let the MTA slip back into the hell it became in the 1960s and 1970s. That would be far, far worse for our economy that some tolls on the East River. Brodsky also gives me hope that not every politician will have a knee-jerk reaction to inconvenient truths the Ravitch Report will contain next month. We need to look forward for a solution. If that means higher tolls or a congestion fee or higher taxes, then so be it. A New York without a functional MTA with the ability to expand to meet the demands of a 21st Century city would be a bad place indeed.
9 comments
Has anyone heard about other proposals on the table. I notice on my gas bill from Keyspan there is a 4% MTA tax. what about imposing a similar tax on electricity – or cell phones. Popular, probably not, but we have to find add’l revenue.
I am also wondering if the Ravitch commission will also recommend some cost saving measures for the MTA.
Oh, I think the Ravitch Commission’s report will have some less glamorous solutions such as raising taxes and the like. But the best way to secure a dedicated revenue stream is by either tolling or the congestion fee. Unless the government is willing to commit, carte blanche, to a minimum and substantial annual contribution to the MTA, the only way to guarantee that funding is through congestion pricing. Taxes work but only to a point as Marc notes below.
The cost saving measures will be there too, but those will largely be bureaucratic measures.
My cell phone bill has a “MTA Telecom Surcharge” kinda tax too! What’s that?
An electricity tax seems to me a less attractive solution than tolling the city-owned bridges or imposing congestion pricing. For starters, an electricity tax is highly regressive: it hits hardest the people who can least afford to pay. It also has no plausible connection with transit. If there’s a hot summer, then more electricity will be consumed, so more of the tax will be collected. Why should the MTA’s revenues be tied to the amount of sunshine we get? It’s a variation on the problem we have now, where the MTA’s revenues are tied to real estate transactions.
Brodsky most certainly doesn’t get it – if I recall correctly, this is the guy from Westchester who was most against the congestion pricing plan last year, and proposed a great alternative (can’t remember what though – fare hikes?) that screwed over city dwellers in favor of commuting suburbanites. Also, this guy HEADS the transportation committee in the Assembly – if he “got it”, maybe he would be putting together a proposal for the state to increase funding right now.
The real lesson here is that *nobody* gets it – not the head of the MTA, nor the powers that be in the city, or at the state level. We’ll continue to have a mismanaged sclerotic transportation authority as long as it’s hobbled by our mismanaged sclerotic local and state governments. Congestion pricing and tolling the E. River bridges are only temporary answers for revenue shortfalls (which doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be pursued) – the real answer is to sell off the MTA and make it a private corporation with the power to raise its own fares and manage its own personnel costs.
I think you’ll find that where infrastructure has been privatized, the results aren’t always good. Private enterprise looks to make a profit. By its nature, the MTA is a money-losing operation: it needs subsidies to survive, and the only question is where those subsidies come from. Private enterprise isn’t going to change that fact. All it will do is introduce another party who is looking to make money on the deal.
It’s easy for a Westchester politician to agree to toll bridges in neighborhoods outside of his district. Please, enough with the finger-pointing already.
Hey why not let the people riding the train pay the bills that live in upstate NY and commute to the City. They make the big bucks and used the trail put the bills to hold the MTA together on them…or let the business like any other business thats run poorly FOLD up and go awaw or be baught by a private equity. Why is it the responsability of others to support the few. Its taxation without representation and if history serves me correct did a few pople back in Boston get pissed about this in the past?
It’s called externalities. Any basic understanding of economics and the relationship between cities and their suburbs begins with them.