Can Richard Ravtich deliver a miracle? (Photo courtesy of The Observer)
The news rests for nothing, and on Wednesday night, while most people were home spending time with their families and away from the Internet, The Times released the early word from the Ravitch Commission. Using a combination of tolls, taxes and slight fare increase, Richard Ravitch will save the MTA. That is, if anyone will help him.
As expected, the Ravitch Commission report will contain elements of all the plans we’ve heard over the last few weeks. It will call for payroll taxes and East River Bridge tolls. It will call for higher fares and no service cuts.
William Neuman detailed the early version of the plan with a caveat that the draft is not yet final:
The tax on payrolls, expected to be less than one half of 1 percent, would apply to businesses in the 12-county area served by the authority. It would bepaid by businesses, not employees. The tax would be designed to raise $1 billion a year or more.
It would be coupled with the new bridge tolls, which would generate about $600 million a year, after the cost of maintaining the bridges and collecting the tolls is accounted for. Drivers would pay a higher rate on the East River bridges than on the Harlem River bridges under the plan.
There would be no toll plazas: Most tolls would be collected through a system of E-ZPass readers. Drivers without E-ZPass would be identified and could be billed using digital cameras that snap a picture of each vehicle’s license plate.
Control of those bridges, which are owned by the city, would be transferred to the authority under the plan, although it was not clear how that would be achieved.
The third main element of the proposal is a more modest increase for next year in fares and existing tolls on the bridges and tunnels already controlled by the authority. That increase would allow Mr. Ravitch and his supporters to argue that the cost of running the system was being shared by all those who benefit from it.
That sounds like a pretty solid plan. Ravitch is staying away from the politically explosive congestion pricing plan, and he’s allowing the MTA to raise fares, albeit modestly, without cutting service. Considering all of the talk surrounding the MTA’s Doomsday proposal, Ravitch’s all-encompassing plan seems like a beacon of light.
Of course, some aspects of it are tough to stomach. No one wants higher taxes. Even an increase of less than 0.5 percent is a tough sell. No one wants East River tolls either. But at some point, New Yorkers have to make a trade-off. They can’t complain about bad subway service without accepting some costs on the other side. This plan allows for good service and some smaller increases in other costs. Nothing, in the end, is free.
The problem right now though is one of attention and support. This plan needs a champion, as William Neuman explained in the Sunday Times. The plan needs a David Rockefeller to rally political and business leaders behind it. This plan needs a public face, someone New Yorker trust, to sell it. Who that will be is up for debate.
Later this week, Ravitch will release his set of recommendations, and the time to act is now. The MTA can’t dally as its finances head south. It needs a clear-cut plan of action. It can either act on its own by cutting service and raising fares or it can hope that Ravitch’s plan becomes a reality. We’ll learn quickly how this tale ends.
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