James Vacca, chair of the City Council’s Transportation Committee, is quickly becoming transit advocates’ most vocal supporter in New York government. Today, Vacca along with Gene Russianoff, Paul Steely White and Kate Slevin issued a call for New York state, mired in a budget crisis, to keep its hands off of money ostensibly earmarked for transit.
The letter comes on the heels of the news that the state is facing a $315 million tax revenue shortfall, and the situation is eerily similar to the one that developed last fall. In 2009, when faced with a similar crunch, the state opted to take $143 million in funds earmarked for transit away from the MTA. Earlier this year, the state did the same when federal medical assistance payments came up short. To combat yet another financial move, Vacca and his co-signers are urging Gov. David Paterson, Sheldon Silver and John L. Sampson to respect the transit lockbox.
Says the letter, which I’ve embedded after the jump:
Out concern is stoked by the events of last December. Confronted with a midyear budget deficit, the State diverted $143 million from our mass transit “lockbox” to the general fund, in effect raiding a pot of dedicated taxes that were specifically enacted to support the MTA and New York straphangers. This budget “sweep” shook the MTA’s already-unstable fiscal house. As a result, the authority implemented the most severe service cuts in its history, eliminating dozens of bus and subway lines and reducing service on over 100 others. Those cuts stranded tens of thousands of New Yorkers and saddled thousands more with longer waits, additional transfers, and more crowded commutes.
Despite the drastic service cuts anda 7.5% fare and toll hike scheduled for January — the third in as many years — the MTA’s budget outlook remains bleak. the MTA projects an operating deficit of $87 million next year and substantially higher deficits in the out-years. Its five-year capital plan is short nearly $10 billion with no funding provided by the State past the second year. Straphangers face the real possibility of additional service cuts or fares hikes if the MTA cannot identify steady funding sources. At a time when the State should be focused on shoring up the future of mass transit funding — and restoring the $143 million that was diverted last year — conducting another “sweep” would send a terrible message.
The MTA’s subways, buses, and trains are the engine that drives New York’s economy. New York City cannot survive without a vibrant mass transit system, and our mass transit system cannot survive without a stable source of funding. Denying the MTA any additional funds from its dedicated tax stream at this time would be a short-term fix with severe long-term consequences. We urge you to take a different route.
I’ll have more on the idea of a transit lockbox in the coming months, but the real problem here is that the lockbox doesn’t exist. The state and city taxes that are ostensibly earmarked for the MTA are deposited into the state’s general fund, and the legislature is then supposed to redistribute the receipts to the MTA. This set-up makes it way too easy for the state to divert transit dollars to other areas of the budget, and in times of crisis, the MTA’s coffers make an appealing target.
California’s transit funds are now constitutionally protected. It’s time for New York to take the same plunge before the MTA’s dollars are diminished even further.
After the jump, read the letter in its entirety.
1 comment
It’s refreshing to hear an elected official say the right things about transit funding, rather than the usual political posturing and MTA bashing.
The truth is, and has always been, that the MTA finances are controlled by and are the responsibility of our elected officials in Albany. If criticism for service-cuts and fare-hikes were directed at them, we wouldn’t be in this mess.