The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, operators of the Hudson River crossings and the PATH trains, has announced a plan to increase fares and tolls. PATH train fares will go up $.30 to $.50, and tolls will climb to $8. PANYNJ also plans to eliminate E-ZPass discounts during peak travel hours. [New York Times]
Earlier today, I wrote about the low attendance among MTA board members at the fare hike hearings. The problem, it seems, is worse than I thought.
According to a report in The Daily News, three MTA board members – Andrew Saul, Donald Cecil and Susan Metzger (showed above in that order) – skipped every single fare hike hearing. Nancy Shevell showed to only one hearing after her tryst with Paul McCartney became public knowledge.
“Membership on the MTA board is a privilege, not a right, with awesome responsibilities,” State Assemblyman Rory Lancman (D-Queens) said to reporter Pete Donohue. “Members who can’t drag themselves to even one fare hike hearing to face the riding public not only shouldn’t be allowed to vote for a fare hike, they shouldn’t be on the board at all.”
This story is part of The Daily News’ ongoing Halt the Hike, a blending of editorial content and news reporting. While one could question the journalistic ethics behind such a blurring of the traditional lines of objectivity in news reporting, The Daily News is spot on in this case, and their companion editorial nails the issue:
Why should they care about the cost of transportation? MTA board members get lifetime free MetroCards, lifetime free Metro-North and LIRR train passes and lifetime free E-ZPass accounts. For themselves and for their spouses or paramours.
Let the cry go up from the streets: Revoke their privileges! And kick them off the board!
Since they obviously have no interest in the riders and no interest in the scores of lawmakers who are urging the MTA to delay the fare hike, these three do not belong on the panel. Board Chairman Dale Hemmerdinger should ask for their resignations and for replacement members before any vote on the hikes.
If the MTA board members aren’t going to at least pretend that they’re listening to the public, they have no business serving on the board. And that’s all there is to say.
So the MTA’s fare hike hearings are suffering from something of a PR backlash. As I noted on Monday, MTA board members — those very same board members who don’t ride the subways but have to vote for the fare hike next month — haven’t bothered to show up to the hearings. That’s certainly the way to win over a very skeptical public.
In fact, the non-attendance has gotten so out of hand that one legislator is proposing stripping absentee board members of their votes. Rory Lancman, a Democratic Assembly representative from Queens, has written a bill that would bar board members from voting on the fare hike if they haven’t attended at least 50 percent of the hearings. Lancman, an avid opponent of the congestion fee, raises a valid point, but right now, it’s too little too late.
Meanwhile, down in the our Nation’s Capital, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority is going through its very own fare hike motions. The WMATA, despite double-digit ridership growth over the last five years, claims they need a fare hike in order to maintain their current levels of service. In fact, as I noted in August, the WMATA is already threatening to cut DC’s already-pathetic late-night subway service if they don’t get the fare hike. Aw, how cute. They’re resorting to the same threats as the MTA. They want to be just like us.
In fact, they’ve even gone so far as to schedule a series of meetings in Virginia, Maryland and the District so that riders can give feedback on the fare hike proposals. Now, while our fare hike hearings suffer from a noted lack of officials, DC’s hearings have another problem: Only four people showed up to the first one yesterday.
As Lena H. Sun in the Washington Post reported, this poor turnout was probably related to the location chosen for the fare hike. The WMATA picked a conference center in Reston, VA, a DC suburb that is Metro-accessible. The conference center, however, is not at all accessible. Here’s how the WMATA’s Website recommends you get there:
By Metrorail: Orange Line to the West Falls Church station, transfer to the Fairfax Connector Bus 505 or 950 to the Reston Town Center Transit Station where a free shuttle bus will leave at 6 and 6:30 p.m. to the public hearing. Fairfax Connector will provide free shuttle bus service from the public hearing to the Reston Town Center Transit Station.
Got that? Take the train to a bus to a free shuttle bus to a public hearing. I don’t think the WMATA has set up enough hoops through which it expects the public to leap. For her part, WMATA board member Catherine Hudgins said it was “possible” that the location may have contributed to the poor turnout. Ya think?
So as New York and the MTA go through a few growing pains on the long and torturous path to a seemingly-inevitable fare hike, at least the MTA has picked places that are rider-friendly. No one shows up to listen to the complaints, but in New York, the people are out in force. In Washington, where the WMATA is involved, it’s a whole different beast all together.
I warned ’em but to no avail. Yesterday, the MTA board members — or at least those who decided to show up — had to face a room full of pissed off Staten Islanders, and based on reports in the Staten Island Advance and on NY1, it was not a pretty scene.
At the last of the fare hike hearings before this weekend’s big Public Engagement Workshop, the touring fare hike circus journeyed to that hard-to-reach Staten Island to discuss transit options with a bunch of disgruntled Staten Island residents. As NY1’s Amanda Farinacci relates, things started out bad and only got worse.
To highlight the transit problems facing Staten Island, State Senator Diane Savino leveled an indictment of the MTA’s designated start time for the hearing. “There is a hearing held here at 6 p.m., and if they lived in any other borough, the vast majority of people would be able to get here,” she said. “But most Staten Islanders are still on their way home.”
Maura Yates, of Staten Island’s hometown newspaper, had more of the gruesome details:
The officials about to vote on a proposed fare and toll hike probably haven’t experienced the hell of standing up for hours on a stifling express bus with no bathroom, day in and day out. So several furious Staten Islanders who took the microphone during the public hearing that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority conducted last night at the Petrides Educational Complex in Sunnyside challenged them to do just that.
And at least two MTA officials said they’d be willing to make the trip. “I know the pain, I feel it,” said Todt Hill resident Frank Powers, who is Staten Island’s representative on the board. He said he experiences the traffic firsthand driving home from MTA headquarters in Midtown. “It’s not a question that none of us know it,” he said. “We do know it.”
He said, he’d be willing to board an express bus “at 57th Street at 5 o’clock, if that’s what it takes.” Hilary Ring, the MTA’s director of government affairs, said he would come, too.
I’m not sure that’s what it takes, Frank. For one day, you, one of three privileged MTA board members who openly admitted to shunning public transit during rush hour commuets, will experience the joys of a two-hour bus ride from home to work. And then you’ll go back to your car. I’m sure that’ll convince Powers to vote against the fare hike.
Meanwhile, Staten Islanders annoyed at constant Verrazano Bridge construction and few other transit options for escaping the Island even challenged the MTA on their bathroom breaks. Yates relates the tale of one Joseph Mizrahi who noted that one of the board members had left for a bathroom break one hour into the hearing. “Think of the people who don’t have that luxury” while trapped on buses for two hours or more each afternoon, he said. “Who are you to judge fare increases on something you can’t even relate to?”
With the end of this bitter hearing, the only public forum standing between the MTA board and the fare hike vote is Saturday’s workshop. This is it, folks. If we want to further drive home the point that no one wants the fare hike, show up to this hearing. But be prepared to present alternatives. How can the MTA fund its debt service and expansion plans without a fare hike? If we can’t answer these questions, we’ll have to face the reality of a fare hike, and the MTA will have to face a very bitter ridership.
According to a report in the Daily News, MTA board members tasked with voting on the fare hike aren’t even bothering to show up to the public hearings. Six of the 16 voting members attended the Brooklyn meeting last week, and no more than five have attended any other meeting. Only three MTA members have been to all of the hearings, and the one member who has announced his public support for the fare hike – Andrew Saul – hasn’t been to any of the hearings. [Daily News]
Ask any Staten Islander how the rest of New York City views the oft-forgotten borough, and more often than not, the answer is last and least. The MTA, according to residents of the Island, is no exception.
One week after the traveling fare hike hearing circus hit the road and made its way through the City’s four other boroughs, Staten Island is getting its day in the sun on Tuesday. And despite recent announcements of expanded service along the Staten Island Railroad, the Island’s residents are not happy, to say the least.
Over the weekend, The Daily News noted that Staten Island residents are more than annoyed with the MTA. Because of ongoing construction on the Verrazano Bridge, residents are dealing with constant traffic and extra-long commutes. As it is, Staten Island has no underground connection to the rest of New York City, and residents are feeling more neglected than usual. People who live in New Jersey and Long Island get home sooner is a popular and not inaccurate refrain among Staten Islanders.
While Pete Donohue’s piece in The News scratched the surface of the Staten Island problem, two recent editorials in the Staten Island Advance show the underlying animosity between Staten Island residents and the MTA. The first dealt with the expanded SIR service. In it, the Advance notes that MTA CEO and Executive Director Elliot Sander is the first MTA head to show any interest in Staten Island in a long time. The second is more critical:
Maybe it’s just coincidence that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority scheduled Staten Island last in its series of required public hearings on the proposed fare and toll increases. You probably won’t persuade many Staten Island commuters of that, however. They’re used to this borough’s transportation needs being at the bottom of the MTA’s list of priorities.
The first five hearings took place last week around the city and the region. The hearing here will take place Tuesday evening at 6 p.m. at the Michael J. Petrides Educational Complex, Building C. Maybe it’s a coincidence, too, that the hearing is scheduled to start at 6 p.m. on Tuesday. That’s a time of the evening when home is still an hour or more away for many commuters who live here.
The early start time leads to the suspicion that the MTA really doesn’t want to hear what Staten Islanders think about the fare and toll hikes. As a matter of fact, if the past is any indication, a handful of second-tier MTA officials will show up at the hearing, listen with barely concealed boredom to riders’ complaints about fares and service, then leave promptly at a pre-designated time before everyone’s had a chance to be heard.
Yikes. Talk about a vendetta.
For Staten Islanders, though, this is a legitimate problem. The only road connecting their island to the rest of the city is a bridge to Bay Ridge. Otherwise, a railway and ferry provide access to Manhattan, but commute times can be painfully long.
Over on Subchat, a few good contributors are engaged in a long dialogue concerning the subway and Staten Island. One contributor suggested looking into extending the 1 train or the Second Ave. Subway to Staten Island, but that’s a multi-billion-dollar project that wouldn’t see the light of day for decades. In the meantime, express bus service may be the Island’s last good hope.
No matter the solution, when the fare hike hearing arrives on Tuesday, the MTA will face some bitter Staten Island residents. Bitter over the fare hike, bitter over the poor transportation options, bitter over ongoing bridge construction, these New Yorkers may just put up the strongest fight yet against the MTA’s fare hike proposal. That is, if the transit officials don’t talk everyone to sleep in the first 45 minutes of the meeting.
“I understand once again you want to raise the price of admission to wait for trains that hardly ever run. This is no way to run a system. The service stinks.”
With those words, Martin Gangerksy, a 60-year-old resident of Brighton Beach began what amNew York’s David Freedlander and Marlene Naanes described as a public firing line aimed at the MTA officials trying to defend the upcoming fare hike. While I couldn’t attend the public hearing in Brooklyn last night, I will be going to the November 17 workshop. In the meantime, we’ll have the other news outlets reporting on the series of hearings taking place this week and next.
The night, according to the report, was chock full o’ anti-fare hike folks. Mr. Subway Gene Russianoff of the Straphangers Campaign chimed in. “Riders are just getting by financially and this is a real blow to their ability to make it in New York,” he said, and Brooklynites from across the borough joined in the chorus with their alloted three minutes of speaking. The event, in other words, contained few surprised and a lot of disgruntled straphangers.
But it was not all bad news for straphangers looking for fare relief. While MTA spokesman Jeremy Soffin and CEO Elliot “Lee” Sander continued to speak as though the hike is all but inevitable, a few politicians in Albany are hoping to deliver enough money so the financially-strapped can scuttle the hike. Will it be enough though?
Annie Karni of The Sun reported yesterday on the happenings in Albany:
State lawmakers today are announcing new legislation that would increase city and state aid to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority by $660 million, a boost they say could help stave off the fare hike scheduled for February…
“The state has not been giving the MTA its fair share of revenue to operate the system,” state Senator Thomas Duane of Manhattan, who is introducing the bill today, said…The bill would allot $305.5 million for subway and bus operating expenses from the state budget, as well as $32.3 million for the commuter railroads. The totals would be matched by the city. “I don’t know what the MTA’s thinking is, but this would make a fare hike not inevitable,” Mr. Duane said.
On behalf of the MTA, Soffin continued to state that the MTA needs a $2 billion commitment from New York in order to avoid the fare hike. Astute readers may wonder why the MTA needs so much if they projected a deficit of just a few hundred million next year. The reason, you see, lies in debt payments and perpetuity deals.
The MTA has a series of debt payments it must make over the next few years and a series of ongoing capital construction costs it must meet that extend well past 2008. To meet the various parts of the debt payment and its standard operating budget, the MTA must ensure a steady cash flow for more than just one year. That’s why the MTA wants to institute a fare hike. Higher fares are a reliable stream of steady revenue whereas a one-off bill from Albany with no promise of future commitments simply serves to avoid the inevitable.
I am no fan of the idea of a fare hike, but I am a fan of fiscal stability and prosperity for the MTA. New York’s current growth and future health as a vibrant city depend on it. Until the MTA can find that money in other places — Student Metrocards and overtime pay would be good starting points — carrots from Albany are nothing but half promises and fare hikes deferred.
Today’s Daily News notes that the MTA has not been adequately reimbursed by the city for Student Metrocard uses. If that sounds familiar, it’s because I wrote about this exact issue when the comptroller’s report came out back in August. You heard it here it first. [NY Daily News]
The New York Post discovers that, yes, some MTA employees are paid. (Source: The New York Post)
Ah, the fare hike. It’s that one time every few years when the MTA’s finances are scrutinized by everyone under the sun.
With the public hearings starting today (register here), The New York Post takes a look at what the MTA is paying its employees. Rupert Murdoch’s paper has found a rather large amount of overtime landing in the pockets of those MTA workers.
In an article detailing the escalating salaries of MTA workers, The Post has also discovered that the number of workers earning above $100,000 a year has risen as well. Bruce Golding reports:
As the MTA fights for a fare hike, the number of agency workers who took home more than $100,000 last year jumped 37 percent – as the agency paid a total of $397 million in overtime…
The number of MTA employees with base salaries exceeding $100,000 rose to 1,793 last year from 1,403 in 2005, a 28 percent jump. By comparison, the number of New York City workers with salaries over $100,000 rose only 6 percent during the same time.
Overtime payments helped push the number of employees taking home more than $100,000 to 4,382 in 2006, up from 3,209 the year before – an increase of 37 percent. At the LIRR, overtime pay boosted 656 workers past $100,000 in earnings, compared with 205 who made that much in straight salaries. At Metro-North, the numbers were 240 through overtime and 226 from salaries.
Now, I can’t fault workers for earning more than $100,000. While a lot of people on the Internet who write about the subways have a very low opinion of some subway workers and Flickr is chock full of pictures of MTA employees sleeping on the job, if their seniority and work ethic demand it, then these workers should be fairly compensated. While the article in The Post seems to be more concerned with the $100K figure than anything else, I’d like to focus on overtime.
According to this article, the MTA doled out a whopping $397 million in overtime last year. Now, that $300 million sure does sound familiar. Ah, right, it’s the amount of money the MTA needs next year to avoid the fare hike, according to MTA CEO Elliot “Lee” Sander.
I doubt it’s reasonable to expect the MTA to cut out all of that overtime, but I would have to believe that they could half the amount of money they pay out in overtime. Something in the organization culture of the MTA has led many, many employees to work overtime and expect pay for it.
As the MTA’s finances come under the fare hike microscope for the next two months, the MTA should start to cut some of that fat. Evening saving a quarter of this overtime money — $100 million — brings the organization that much closer to avoiding a fare hike or, if the fare hike is inevitable, paying for more service upgrades. Let’s see it happen.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the good folks who run the Hudson River crossings, yesterday announced that they are seeking to raise the tolls by up to 33 percent on some bridge and tunnel crossings. Lincoln and Holland Tunnel tolls could reach $9. With these toll hikes and the MTA looking to raise the fares, the New York area is in for its largest round of toll and fare hikes in its motor vehicle history. [The New York Times]