Second Ave. Sagas

Some thoughts on city control vs. Mayoral power

Written by

Benjamin Kabak

in

It’s been a few months since the idea of city control over the MTA creeped into the news. At one point, city control came up nearly weekly at Sal Albanese, Joe Lhota and Christine Quinn all set forth proposals for city control of either its transit system or the MTA. But also-rans don’t get to set policy, and now that the waning days of Bloomberg are upon us, a discussion on city control has reentered the picture.

The latest comes to us from The Observer and general New York gadfly Larry Penner. He calls upon our mayor-elect to reassess city control over its transit system. My revoking the lease agreement in place between New York City and the New York City Transit Authority, Penner argues, Bill de Blasio could quickly move to reassert mayoral control over the subways.

Political reality makes this potential move a non-starter, but Penner’s piece tosses around a few ideas worth exploring. Noting that the MTA was born out of a need to shore up finances and remove politics from the decision-making process, Penner touches upon a theme I’ve covered: Albany is willing to take credit for the good, but no one will take credit for the bad. City control can solve that problem.

If Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio feels he could do a better job running the nation’s largest subway and bus system, will he step up to the plate now and regain control of his destiny? … Mr. de Blasio has fellow Democrats NYC Comptroller Scott Stringer, Public Advocate Letitia James and a future NYC Council Speaker, along with 48 of 51 NYC Council members. Starting with the upcoming July 1, 2014 municipal budget, will they work with him to support increasing NYC’s capital funding to the MTA?

…Mr. de Blasio has fellow Democrats Governor Andrew Cuomo, State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli and State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, along with 99 members of the State Assembly. Fifty-nine are based in NYC. There are 16 more from Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester, Putnam, Rockland and Dutchess counties, giving Silver a working majority. State Senate minority leader Andrea Stewart-Cummins has 20 of 22 members from NYC. There are two more members lead by Senator Jeffrey Klein of the “Independent Democratic Caucus” from NYC. Add two other NYC-based and 12 Long Island-Hudson Valley suburban Republican State Senators led by GOP Senate leader Dean Skelos, and there is a working majority coalition within the MTA service area.

Asking suburban-based members of the State Legislature—be they Assembly members or State Senators, Democrats or Republicans—to support any non NYC resident paying a commuter tax has historically been and will continue to be doomed to failure. This will continue with all having to face voters in 2014. Asking them all to support increasing funding to the MTA would benefit constituents of NYC based public officials who ride New York City Transit bus and subway. It would also benefit suburban based office holders whose constituents ride either the Long Island Rail Road or Metro North Rail Road. This could build a winning majority coalition in both the State Assembly and State Senate. Will Mr. de Blasio attempt to build bridges on mutual issues of interest with suburban residents that could benefit everyone? Will he challenge Albany to increase its contribution to the next 2015-2019 MTA Capital Program by billions more?

Penner’s piece is perhaps written through rose-colored glasses. While the MTA districts may have a majority of seats in Albany, Democrats and Republicans do not see eye-to-eye on transit funding schemes, tax plans or direct capital contributions. They won’t work together, and they certainly won’t bridge the gap because the new mayor of New York, who ran on an aggressive left-wing platform, asks nicely.

City control, therefore, remains unlikely, and even the head of the MTA — who knows his boss is in Albany — has spoken against it. It won’t solve the problems of responsibility or funding, and no mayor will voluntarily take on a headache of which New York cured itself back in the early 1950s.

I have a hard time finding even a silver lining in the city control cloud. By removing the decision-making from the hands of the state, the city will have to take on funding obligations it hasn’t seen fit to address for decades. Plus, the regional planning issues — which the MTA barely addresses — will fall entirely by the wayside right when they shouldn’t. With a mayor-elect who identifies as a driver, it’s hardly the time to expect for progressive transit leadership from City Hall even if we hope for better (or at least Bloombergian levels of support).

So we are again left with the feeling that city control is an idea that sounds better in practice than reality. City residents already control six of the MTA’s 14 board votes and numerous non-voting seats, and de Blasio can set transportation policy — especially in the realm of buses and street space — through the Department of Transportation. Let’s not yet wrest subway control and the financial hassles that come with it from the state quite yet.

Comments

18 responses to “Some thoughts on city control vs. Mayoral power”

  1. Stephen Smith

    I don’t really understand your “how would the city pay for it?” argument against home rule on transit. The city and its suburbs are a net donor to the state budget, so the city and the ‘burbs are paying for the MTA in practice now. The only thing that would change under a city-run MTA is that the city/suburbs would stop giving Albany some of the money that Albany currently gives back to NYC/its suburbs in the form of subway and bus service. I’m sure Albany would happily give back the MTA tomorrow if the city didn’t ask for its money back.

    And frankly, I don’t think Albany is as attached to running NYC’s transit service as everyone thinks. It’s not like legislators can spend the money on anything that’s useful to them, politically – the MTA is too independent for that, so of what use is spending the money? Cuomo clearly doesn’t care about the MTA, isn’t using it for political gain like he’s using the Thruway (with the Tappan-Zee) or the way Chris Christie is using the Port Authority (with…well, everything its done since he’s become governor). He doesn’t seem to care about it at all, and I’m sure upstate Republicans don’t either. Yes, the power of the purse is valuable to politicians in general, but here I just don’t see what’s in it for Albany, and why they’d have such a big problem with giving the city back its money and the MTA.

    So this leaves the regionalism thing. The a new muni-MTA could have some input from the suburbs which will contribute to funding, but even if you had to lob off the subway and buses from the commuter railroads, it’s not like they have one iota of cooperation now (see: East Side Access cavern), so you’re not really losing anything.

    But what you’re gaining is an agency that can actually be accountable to city voters.

    Reply
    1. Brandon

      Cuomo has used the MTA for political gain (see Sandy, the MNR crash and every other windbreaker moment), but as you said, without caring about it.

      I dont know if I want the agency to be accountable to city voters (or, to put it more clearly, their representatives). It seems to me that most people prefer lower fares to a solvent MTA, and their representatives may be more than willing to score political points by making it so.

      Reply
      1. Stephen Smith

        I’d argue that Sandy and the MNR derailment are actually reasons why he’d wanna give it up – why would he want to be associated with all of that nastiness? Sure, he showed up in his windbreaker, but it was really damage control. I’m sure he would rather have it be the mayor’s problem when something goes wrong with the MTA.

        Reply
    2. Bolwerk

      Agreed with Stephen. Also: Albany is not losing an iota of authority if it lets the city manage the MTA. All Albany is doing is delegating some additional power to the city.

      OTOH, I have yet to hear de Blasio show much interest in transit beyond the usual “throw buses at the problem” attitude. He doesn’t seem to give much more of a shit about transit than Cuomo.

      Until we get a mayor willing to show interest in transit investment, mayoral control is at best a lateral move.

      Reply
    3. Henry

      MTA is one of the few things that make the State Legislature relevant to downstaters – the City has control over most of its day-to-day functioning.

      Shelly Silver was able to hold the MTA’s capital plans hostage in the ’70s until the SAS was built all at once instead of in two phases. Why would state legislators want to give up that kind of power?

      Reply
      1. Stephen Smith

        The fact that the last time you can think of that politician used the MTA for political gain was in the ’70s says it all. Also: Albany is still responsible for rent regulation and lots of NYC tax stuff (and not just income tax! they also hold a lot of power over how property taxes are assessed).

        Reply
  2. John-2

    Well, if nothing else, if the city reasserted control the subways could get their better-looking logo back.

    The problem is the city in large part gave up control because of John Lindsay’s inept handling of the 1/1/66 transit strike, and that fact that opened the floodgates to a series of municipal contracts that were too much for the revenue stream of the day to handle, resulting in the near-default a decade later. The city couldn’t turn the police, fire or sanitation departments over to Albany, but Lindsay could avoid having to do another bus and subway contract, and Nelson Rockefeller saw it as a way to consolidate power not just over the mass transit of the area but to kneecap Robert Moses, by taking away his TBTA fiefdom on the grounds the bridge and toll revenues could subsidize the bus and subway costs.

    That’s the other problem for de Blasio — if he were to reassert control without gaining control of the bridge and tunnel revenues, the city would immediately face a revenue shortfall even before we get into the question of the mayor having direct responsibility for TWU negotiations again. So he’d have less $$$ and would shoulder more blame if anything goes wrong either with future TWU talks or with the operation of the system itself.

    Control of the in-city mass transit without access to the current alternative revenue streams would be the equivalent of Albany sticking New York with an unfunded mandate. No mayor’s going to take that offer, even if the pols in the outlying areas would love to dedicate more of the bridge and toll funds to the LIRR and Metro North.

    Reply
    1. BruceM

      I do miss that “TA” logo!

      Reply
  3. Michael

    Responsibility is a really interesting issue, that so far has not been addressed. Recently there have been several issues where a transportation agency has chosen a course of action, notified the relevant parties and the public about their plans, obtained the funding & proceeded to implement the plan, and in a few cases meet public disapproval. Just a couple of examples: Bike lanes. In some sections of the city, in creation of bike lanes has resulted in less parking space, additional hazards for pedestrians, and changes in how the streets are used. There has been some public clamor for the removal or alteration of some bike lanes, especially in boroughs other than Manhattan. Since DOT is a city-agency under the control of the Mayor – just think about how this issue has fared.

    Another example – Bus lanes. In order to better implement the SBS Bus program, near exclusive bus lanes had to be created in several parts of the city. This has been met with local politicians requesting additional stops for what’s supposed to be a type of “express” bus, local politicians objecting to the use of cameras that ticket car drivers who may or may not have violated the bus lanes, as well complaints by the public over the changes in the way the streets are used. Of course there are the usual arguments about the placement of such buses (see Harlem, 34th Street, etc). Do you still have faith in mayoral or local control?

    The Staten Island ferry schedule – going on for 39 years, the weekend and late night hourly ferry schedule instituted under Mayor Koch may soon come to an end. No longer will Staten Islanders have to spend weekend evenings (after 7pm), nights or very late nights waiting an hour for the ferry. Until about 1974, the very late night schedule was a boat every 30-minutes, with boats every 20 minutes during the day-time. The hourly schedule was instituted under Mayor Koch as a restoration of late night service, when for a 6-month period He did not run any as in zero, none, zilch, nada ferries running at all from midnight to 6am every night. Even the NY Times editorialized about the hardship for Staten Islanders. Recently the City Council voted to have ferries run every 30 all of the time, with more frequent service rush hours. This was the second unanimous vote that the City Council had taken concerning the ferry schedule to establish service every 30 minutes, the first in 2004, when additional ferries were added on weekend mornings, and weekday nights around midnight. My point is that those clamoring for mayoral control of transportation should take need of the experience of the powerless, and the decisions made about and for the powerless.

    The Subway Fare – Please tell me what political figure really wants to take credit for raising the subway fare? Right now the political figures can always say, “It’s the MTA’s fault about raising the fare, or raising the tolls! Not Mine!”. Please consider the fact that the subway fare (under city control) did not rise from a nickel for about 40 years! And how such a fare structure created severe problems for the subway and bus system. Does the public really enjoy a raise in the subway or bus fare, or do car drivers really like having the tolls raised? The same thing can be said when there are weekend service disruptions. Notice how community folk in Flushing objected to service disruptions on the #7, during a local holiday festival. Local politicians can find reasons for practically every weekend in the year for why service should not be disrupted to repair the subways.

    To those who are clamoring for city control of the subways and buses – there are several issues that have to be looked at. To those who know and understand the city’s history – they know that there were good reasons for the creation of quasi-public authorities that handled certain tasks. This is not to say that the MTA is the best of all that is possible. There is a saying, “The Devil You Know…”

    Mike

    Reply
    1. Bolwerk

      Eh, bus lane and bike lane opponents get attention and influence well out of proportion with their numbers. There are problems with the implementations, but they’re basically popular and rightly so. They’re big improvements.

      Reply
    2. anon

      I thought the subways stayed at a nickel for so long at least in part to bankrupt the private companies?

      Reply
    3. Quirk

      tl:dr

      Reply
  4. Stu Sutcliffe

    Penner may be a gadfly, but he’s relentlessly on the Republican side of things. He notes all of the Democratic decision-makers, but gives a lot of slack to Dean Skelos and his cohorts in the Senate, and seems to forget the role that George Pataki played in the diminishing of state aid and the growth of the MTA’s debts.

    Reply
  5. Mike

    De Blasio “identifies himself as a driver”? I don’t think that necessarily means he won’t be supportive of expanded subway service in the city, especially given where he (currently) lives in Brooklyn. But yes, I don’t see him trying to get the City to take back control of the subways and buses. Still doesn’t mean he would be against subway expansion.

    Reply
  6. johndmuller

    Some ideas sound better the less you think about them. That is, they sound better than they really are.

    This idea is not so much of “letting” the city take back its transit system, but of “foisting” it off on the city instead. Does anyone really believe that Albany would give more money to the new transit operator from general revenues than they already do? It’s not as if regular tax money is paid to NYS only for transit, or that local residents would get a discount on state income tax if the MTA were broken up. There would just be less interest in Albany (if possible) for local transit issues.

    It’s not clear what would happen to MN and LIRR. The suburbs already have a love-hate relationship with commuter rail, and I doubt that people in the city care about prettying up the Tarrytown station. How would you split up the bridge and tunnel revenue?

    Applying the rule of opposites, here’s an idea that maybe sounds worse than it really is: Merge the MTA, the Port Authority, and NJT. While we’re at it, throw in some Connecticut entity (like a part of CDOT), and whatever misc. other things that might go along (like the Staten Island and other ferries, Roosevelt Island tram, maybe some bus lines).

    Aside from an initial OMG, are you crazy, I don’t think it would be so bad (and if that isn’t an insipid enough, try “no worse than we already have” or “it wouldn’t cost any more” or “what’s another incompatible railroad anyway”). Try just thinking about it at least, it might grow on you.

    With 3 (states) and a half (NYC) entities instead of 1 and a half, the politics would be more interesting and possibly more fruitful (after all, could they be less?). The PA is rolling in money, and the rest of us have better ways to spend it than they apparently do; perhaps add a toll or two in Connecticut?

    Reply
  7. Quirk

    Will phase of 2nd avenue system materialize in 2017/after phase 1? That is the most important subway expansion that should be looked at.

    Reply
  8. David Brown

    I do not see De Blasio taking over the Subways. How do I know? If he really wanted to, there is an obvious place to take a “photo op” to show why the City should replace the MTA. Yesterday, in my final week in New York, I was at the perfect place for just that. Which is of course, Chambers Street. Is it the most important station? No. Does it actually sicken me like West 4th Street? No. But since it is next to City Hall, and for the reason it has a negative symbolism about it (like Willets Point), if he wanted the City to take over, a picture of De Blasio standing next to the “Mosaic Tile of the Brooklyn Bridge” to the left of the (J) Train Platform, would be the most obvious place to start generating interest in it.

    Reply
  9. Boris

    Who operates our subways and buses would be, in some ways, irrelevant if we had a functioning transportation planning system. NYMTC, downstate’s impotent Metropolitan Planning Organization, is the federally-designated transportation planning agency that can in theory be much more powerful than it is, within existing law. If properly structured, staffed, and funded, it can be managing all the relevant agencies, regardless of which municipality technically has control, for the benefit of the entire region.

    The best way to do this would be to make NYMTC an elected body and expand its coverage area to include NJ Transit’s service area. Of course this would never happen as it would impede the hot air coming out of our politicians’ mouths.

    Reply

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