As I wrapped up the Year That Was in Transit for 2009 late last week, the sheer amount of bad news stuck out the most. From January to December, from Transit to Capital Construction, from operating costs to project timelines, the MTA faced more bad news in a year than some agencies face in a decade.
We saw budgets shrivel and die. We saw service cuts threatened, a bad financial package approved, fares go up and more service cuts arrive on our laps as a New Year/holiday present. We saw the timeline for the Second Ave. Subway get delayed by two years (or more), and we saw the opening of the new South Ferry station delayed for months because of a one-inch engineering error. Despite peak ridership figures and great crime and safety numbers, 2009 was not a banner year for the MTA and mass transit in New York City.
As we arrive on the first business day of the New Year, then, I offer up a wishlist of sorts for transit in New York City for 2010. Some of these items will be easier to realize than others, but if all come to fruition, the beleaguered transportation network will be better off for it.
1. A true source of dedicated funding
Right now, this lead item is a no-brainer. The MTA has its financial back to the wall because the piecemeal funding package — one relying on taxi surcharges, payroll taxes and car registration fees — simply didn’t work, and it didn’t work for very obvious reasons. It didn’t work because payroll taxes are too heavily dependent on the economy. It didn’t work because fees and surcharges don’t drive people to transit. It didn’t work because, tautologically, it left the MTA $100-$200 million short of the money it was expected to deliver.
For 2010, the city and state have two choices: Either the MTA will cut services — including the Student MetroCards for which the MTA should not foot the bill — or the government can find a dedicated revenue source. And just what should that revenue source be? I believe it should be either congestion pricing or East River Bridge Tolls. These proposals will generate a set level of revenue for the MTA while also encouraging transit use among those who do not need to drive. It is a far more equitable way to fund the agency than the payroll tax is and also provides an environmental boost to a heavily polluted region.
Also on the table for 2010 will be a handful of far less likely proposals. The state could reenact the commuter tax. The city could restore its pre-Giuliani Era subsidies to the MTA. The agency could raise fares through the roof. Tolls or congestion pricing remain the better, if not the best, solution.
2. A better, more cohesive advocacy and public relations campaign by those who care
As I’ve written on more than one occasion, transit advocacy in the city is disjointed. The Straphangers Campaign advocates for riders while a few other smaller groups are pushing for region-wide transit solutions. No one is actively lobbying for transit funding, and no one is in front of the cameras pushing support for transit as the economic driver of the New York Metropolitan region.
For 2010, those of us who care about transit should work together to get out a better message. That message should focus on support for the MTA, and it should not focus around old wives’ tales about two sets of books or John Liu’s inability to understand basic economics. We should not allow State Senators to claim that few of their constituents take the train by choice when, in reality, the vast majority of those constituents don’t even own cars. We must stand up for transit funding, for transit expansion and for transit solutions. Right now, seven million New Yorkers ride the trains every day, and no group is really doing the job here.
3. Rapid technological innovation and adaptation
When Jay Walder assumed control of the MTA, he spoke at length about the need to bring technological innovation to the MTA. While train arrival boards will be activated along the A Division in early 2011 and the MetroCard may be replaced within a few years, Walder can push now for better and faster technological innovation. He can start by overhauling the MTA’s website so that it is suitable for 2010 and not 1999. The MTA is currently the largest agency without open data, and Walder could improve access for developers and the like by a simple stroke of the pen.
4. A solution to the chilly labor relations
As 2009 drew to a close, the new TWU leadership had no love lost for the MTA. The agency had just lost its appeal of the raises awarded via arbitration, and the union leadership was not happy about the legal battle. Over the next few years, the MTA’s pension and salary obligations to its workers will continue to rise as its financial picture worsens. To work through these fiscal problems, the MTA and TWU will have to set aside their differences and agree to at least talk. I don’t expect the TWU to set aside hard-fought raises or hard-earned pensions, but the MTA is in real danger of defaulting on its payments in a few years. Union leadership has to recognize this reality just as the MTA must work to avoid alienating its workers.
5. A fully-funded five-year capital plan
On a day when few were around to notice, Gov. David Paterson’s representative to the state’s Capital Review Board vetoed the MTA’s 2010-2014 capital plan. Due to a $28.8 billion funding hole, the CRB could not approve the new plan, and the MTA is left with just emergency rollover funds as work continues on the Second Ave. Subway and the East Side Access project. (The 7 Line funding from the City is safe.)
Early this year, the MTA must redraw its capital plan and present a proposal without a 35 percent funding hole in it to the CRB. To continue to meet service demands, the MTA must keep expanding and maintaining its current system, and to do that, it needs a capital plan in place. The Second Ave. Subway must night die; the state of good repair plans cannot die.
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In the end, this list is but a start for transit in 2010. With money tight across the board, it will be a rough ride for all, but in the end, we can’t simply give up on the MTA. The system might need some fixing, but it’s far too important to New York for it die the slow and painful death that we’re currently witnessing today.
4 comments
Not to pick a nit but I believe it is the CPRB, Capital Plan Review Board. A side note has to do with Democratic State Senate majority strategy as well. Paterson’s rep vetoing the plan saved Craig Johnson, the LI Democratic Senator and leader of the NIMBY opposition to the LIRR Main Line Third Track, from doing the deed. To save money on the unaffordable 28.8 Billion MTA Capital Plan cynics might want to stall the LIRR East Side Access project since Mr. Johnson and a few NIMBYs in near Nassau continue to oppose Main Line Third Track, without which East Side Access will be useless.
A little smart diplomacy on the part of Mr. Walder might be advised here. The governor’s apparent druthers that a small portion of the capital budget be converted into revenue-smoothing operations money to obviate draconian (grandstanding) service and student cuts should have been given more thoughtful consideration at the last MTA board meeting.
Revenue smoothing needn’t last forever. Just until the economy picks up and the looming MTA employee retirement tsunami enables Mr. Walder to engineer whatever degree of structural downsizing of the worforce he finds the MTA to be in need of.
That is a terrible idea. Once money is taken from the capital budget and placed into operations, the capital budget will never see it back.
It is also a one-time measure that will eventually run out. The MTA will then have to find a new funding source for the operating budget anway, so it will be back to square one but with less capital money.
Governors play hardball. There IS no capital budget except the one the governor’s representative signs off on. Think of it as one step backward now, in order to take two steps forward later on.