Benjamin Kabak

Top: A view of the IRT Flushing Line in Queens around the time service began in the 1920s. Bottom: The same view only 20 years later.

Pop quiz: What mode of transportation moved New York City away from a lower Manhattan tenement-based city into the current sprawling metropolis it is today?

A. Our feet. People just loved to walk and discovered that Flushing isn’t actually that far from Manhattan.
B. Automobiles.
C. Public transportation.

Considering the picture atop this pot, is it really a surprise that the answer is C? Although the automobile played a role in driving people away from the overcrowded conditions of Lower Manhattan, the subway — and the five-cent fare — made a dispersal of people to points north and east possible. Without the subway, New York’s eight million residents wouldn’t be able to live in Canarsie and work near Canal St. They wouldn’t commute from Forest Hills to the Financial District or from Midwood to Midtown.

This reality is lost on many in New York and not least upon our city’s elected representatives and politicians who control the purse strings. As the MTA has come to grips this week with a state calculation error of $200 million that will leave a hole in the MTA’s budget, politicians have tried to avoid taking any responsibility whatsoever for this Albany-inspired problem. Take, for example, Brooklyn’s own Carl Kruger.

His statement, in part blames the MTA for Albany’s inability to calculate revenue streams:

Our ability to budget is only as good as our ability to forecast. We were dependent upon data supplied by the Office of Management and Budget with the understanding that it was verified by the MTA’s own fiscal staff.

Furthermore, our projections were based on the fiscal year rather than the calendar year. This critical point should have been taken into account when the MTA fiscal staff developed its parameters.

It is my shared belief that the payroll tax will ‘kick in’ when the dust settles and smaller employers start making their mandatory contributions. It may not happen in the calendar year, but it will happen in the fiscal year. Since our cuts were calculated on a pro rata basis for the fiscal year and not the calendar year, for the MTA to charge its books with a cut of $143 million in the calendar year obviously has a more severe impact than spreading it out over the fiscal year.

Kruger goes on to warn the MTA against creating “an atmosphere of confusion or a needless sense of unrest over what appears to be self-adjusting bookkeeping issues.” I’m not quite sure with what he can threaten the agency though; Albany can’t take away more money.

Anyway, the idea that this is somehow the MTA’s fault due to a calendar year/fiscal year mix-up is absurd. The state legislature has long been aware that the MTA’s fiscal year is a calendar year, and when they passed the bailout package earlier this year, they do so with an eye toward filling a smaller calendar year gap this year and a larger 12-month gap next year. Kruger’s so-called “share belief” that the money will “kick in” next year is nothing but a pipedream by a politician who isn’t fulfilling his duties as a member of the State Senate. (Or perhaps he just fits it with that august body all too well.)

Kruger’s statement is barely news-worthy anymore. We know Albany doesn’t understand how to govern, and we know politicians don’t understand the importance of mass transit in New York’s economy. When they wake up to that reality, it will be too late.

Early yesterday evening, news broke of a state error concerning revenue generated from the payroll tax that was supposed to bailout the MTA. Although up until last week, the state had been maintaining its initial figures, collection totals were $200 million off pace, and with a state appropriations cutback of $143 million going into effect, the MTA will end the year with $343 million less than expected.

Even though the state accountants are to blame for this large gap, for many New Yorkers, it will just be another arrow in the quiver of barbs to launch at the MTA. The agency, they say, cannot be trusted with any money because it all just disappears. Here, that’s not true, and as an agency spokesman said to me, Monday’s revelations represented “significant unraveling of the rescue package passed by the Legislature in the spring.” Twenty percent of the money promised by the state to the MTA just simply is not there.

The MTA and the state will now have to battle it out for funds, and the MTA will probably end up losing. Although they say they will do everything within their powers to avoid an unplanned 2010 fare hike, they might have to cut services across the board and will have to engage in serious internal belt-tightenin”

On the flip side, the MTA will be asked to do more. The agency will be asked to shuttle more people around New York City while relying on infrastructure that is badly in need of some major capital investments. The agency will be asked to provide more service to underserved areas, and more reliable and frequent service to those transit-rich neighborhoods. More, more, more is squaring off against less, less, less.

It is undeniable that the MTA is the engine that drives much of New York’s economy. The city is entirely dependent upon the subways for its transportation needs. Over seven million New Yorkers ride the subways each week day while Metro-North and the Long Island Rail Road each carry approximately 300,000. The MTA’s bridges and tunnels see just 800,000 toll trips per day. It is clear that the city’s road network and geographical reach make the subway the prime people mover in this urban area.

Outside of the city, the MTA’s economic reach extends throughout the state. As the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA noted during its statement last week on the MTA’s capital plan, “more than 60 municipalities through out the state of New York benefit from the MTA’s Capital Program through subcontractors for subway, bus and rail cars.” The 2005-2009 capital plan, they say, leveraged around $42.1 billion in economic activity from an original investment of $24 billion. The state, though, will not pledge to cover a $10 billion capital gap just as they can’t put together a proper bailout package to fund the MTA’s operations budget gap.

Still, forces conspire against a financially strapped MTA. As the agency’s fiscal picture heads further south, a group angling for TWU leadership posts is threatening “direct action” if the authority does not honor the arbitration award. The union leaders are simply upholding their duties to protect and defend their workers, but it is but another demand on money the MTA does not have. Somehow, the MTA is expected to find $300 million more every year for employee salary and benefits raises.

In the end, where will a looming financial Armageddon take us? The MTA is too important to fail, and it’s too important to roll back services. Maybe we’ll have skyrocketing fares, but more likely, we’ll have sensible funding mechanisms such as congestion pricing and East River Bridge tolls. For now, though, the MTA continually has to make do with less and less from the state while providing more and more for its workers and the millions of customers each day who rely on it for basic transportation needs. Something has to give.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority will end 2009 where it begin: amidst a financial crisis that could lead to service cuts — but hopefully no fare hikes — in 2010.

In an e-mail to the MTA Board members this afternoon, MTA CFO Gary Dellaverson said that, in addition to the $143 million in state appropriations cuts, the MTA is now facing the reality of a shortfall in the payroll tax collections that will reach approximately $200 million. In total, the MTA’s 2009 revenue totals will miss expectations by $343 million, and although the agency can roll this cuts over into 2010, the MTA faces, in the words of Dellaverson, some “very difficult choices” as it prepares its balanced budget for next year.

“Receipts from the recently enacted mobility tax now appear to be under-running projections by about $200 million for this calendar year,” Dellaverson said. “This is a shocking development both because of the magnitude of the under-run (about 20%) and the late date of its discovery. As recently as last week, the State was continuing to advise us of their comfort with the forecast. We do not yet know what is causing these disappointing results. While compliance and timing may be a part of the answer, there is a substantial disconnect from the current performance of other similar tax sources.”

MTA officials were prepared for the original $143 million in state cuts, but this new shortfall caught them by surprise. “It’s the extra $200 million that’s really painful,” MTA spokesperson Jeremy Soffin said.

Although the MTA has long borne the brunt of a public skeptical of its ability to manage its own finances, officials at the agency and outside transit watchdogs stressed the state’s role in this new found gap. Jeremy Soffin called it, a “significant unraveling of the rescue package passed by the Legislature in the spring.”

Gene Russianoff of the Straphangers Campaign was more pointed in his ire toward Albany. “The Campaign,” he said in a statement, “calls on Governor Paterson to investigate whether New York State Department of Taxation and Finance has adequately administered and enforced the new payroll tax and on the MTA to redouble its efforts to find new administrative savings and financial actions that will maintain current fare and service levels in 2010. In 2010, both the governor’s office and the State Legislature are up for election. Hundreds of thousands of riders will not take kindly to broken promises on decent and affordable transit.”

While we await a state response to this Albany accounting error, the MTA is springing into action. The agency’s fiscal year ends at the end of the calendar year, and the Board is under a legal obligation to approve a balanced budget before the end of the month. Furthermore, the agency has committed to avoid a fare hike in 2010 but has plans to raise fares in 2011 and 2013. “It remains our intentions to stick with that understanding on the fare schedule,” Soffin said.

So the agency will look to roll this budget problem into 2010, and as Dellaverson turns his gaze internally, agency spokespeople could not say how the MTA would cover a gap. Service cuts remain on the table, and Jay Walder, the new CEO and Chairman, will continue his initiative to “overhaul with how the MTA does business.”

Furthermore, the MTA is now putting a $350 million bond issuance on hold until the agency board has a chance to review the budget.

All in all, this news caps a turbulent fiscal year for the MTA, and it is news we all could have done without. The agency has promised to “be as transparent as possible about where we were, what caused the situation and what we’re trying to do,” and Dellaverson will have an updated budget proposal when the Board’s Finance Committee meets next Monday.

Still as the authority looks for guaranteed revenue sources, as state calculations continue to fail, the East River Bridges remain free, and congestion pricing is but a glimmer in the eyes of transit advocates. As 2009 nears its end, this story is far from over.