MTA Politics

As I’ve delved into the politics of the MTA and New York City’s love-hate relationship with the subway system, I’ve often believed that transit riders are an untapped political constituency. Most New Yorkers can’t be bothered to learn the intricacies of the MTA’s bureaucratic structure or understand who in our city or state government has proper oversight over the authority. New Yorkers blame the MTA for its institutional, political or economic failings whether it deserves to bear the full brunt of the blame or not.

Part of the problem is one of numbers. The Straphangers Campaign is basically three people with limited money, and Transportation Alternatives doesn’t focus exclusively on transit. There’s just one subway rider advocate on the MTA Board, and somehow these organizations are supposed to represent the interests of five million commuters who just want to get home quickly, maybe have a seat and not pay more for less service.

The other problem is one of message. It’s hard to craft a tale that is both compelling and informative. Take, for instance, the recent Trans Alt survey that found riders unhappier with their commutes in 2011 than they were two years ago. That’s a very negative message, and while Transportation Alternatives leaders stressed Albany’s role in our declining service offerings, the headlines splashed across the front of the city’s newspapers concerned only the unhappiness and not the cause. We can talk, but nothing will change if no one is listening.

The third problem perhaps is one of scope. In a piece for City Room that highlights just how riders are left out of important MTA decisions, Clyde Haberman last week spoke with rider advocates. What should riders want, he asked. The answers:

Too bad that whenever the [union] negotiations resume, an important party will not be at the table. This would be the group of New Yorkers who are supposed to be the bosses of both other parties. We’re referring, of course, to those who ride the subways and buses. Oh, sure, the other sides will say they have nothing but the riders’ interests at heart, and maybe there is some truth to that. But, as ever, a passengers’ representative will not be present…

To fill the vacuum, we turned to a couple of people who have a good sense of what’s on the minds of many commuters. All we asked is that they skip demands like lower (or at least stagnant) fares and improved (or at least not worsened) service. Who doesn’t want those things? But fares are bound to rise, and more frequent trains and buses do not seem in our immediate future. “People are concerned about the cleanliness of stations — that’s a big thing,” said William A. Henderson, executive director of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee, a branch of the transportation authority that is a voice for riders. There is “at least a perception” that stations have become dirtier, Mr. Henderson said.

Also, he said, riders want to see workers put back into vacant agent booths. “With the closing of the booths, people do remark on how lonely it is,” he said. “If something happens, you don’t know if anybody will be there to see it or do anything about it.” Those empty booths also troubled Gene Russianoff, staff attorney for the Straphangers Campaign, a riders’ advocacy group.

Russianoff also spoke of quickening the pace of activation of the countdown clocks as well as streamlining the MetroCard bonus system. Haberman himself called for an end to the alarms on the oft-abused emergency exits and a tidier system for the free newspapers that often flood station entrances. These are little quality-of-life upgrades that could improve the experience of riding in the morning.

Still, I can’t help but think that these are small and incremental ideas. Facing with a recalcitrant Albany, few people with prominent platforms are calling for a reprioritization of how we spend transportation dollars and allocate street space in New York City. Few are highlighting which representatives have repeatedly voted to withdraw money for transit funding that has led to fare hikes and service cuts. No one is calling for massive infrastructure investment on such a scale that would expand subway service as city planners once envisioned with the IND Second System.

Ultimately, we need a mixture of big and little. We need proposals to fix the funding mechanisms, ensure sounder oversight and improve the riding experience. Right now, though, who’s listening? New Yorkers are content to hate the MTA, hate their commutes and vote, over and over again, for the politicians responsible for this mess. It’s a never-ending cycle.

Spurred on by numerous articles this past fall detailing the money the MTA loses to fare-baiting, the State Senate on Monday approved a bill that could hike fines to $500 for those who do not pay their fares. Sponsored by Charles J. Fuschillo of Merrick, the measure increases the cap on civil fines for violations of NYC Transit’s Rules of Conduct from $100 to $500 and could go into effect if the state Assembly and Gov. Andrew Cuomo approve of the measure. The bill also raises the penalty for failing to pay a fine from $50 to $100.

“The MTA and its fare-paying riders shouldn’t have to spend tens of millions of dollars more each year paying for other people’s illegal free rides. At a time when every dollar counts, the MTA needs stronger tools to discourage fare-evasion. Higher fines would create a stronger deterrent and remove the incentive which actually encourages people to try and beat the system. I’m pleased that the Senate has passed this legislation and I urge the Assembly to join us,” Senator Fuschillo, Chairman of the Senate’s Transportation Committee, said in a statement.

In his statement touting the bill’s passage, Fuschillo references the Daily News reports that noted 50,000 straphangers a day entered the subway system without paying in 2010. Ostensibly, the MTA lost out on $31 million in revenue, and the News found that a scofflaw could come out ahead by receiving a $100 ticket every six to eight weeks rather than ponying up for a $104 monthly pass.

I have to wonder though if Fuschillo’s measure won’t get to the root of the problem (or if there’s even a problem). Those 50,000 straphangers per day represent approximately 1 percent of the MTA’s daily ridership. Thus, the authority’s bleed rate is exceedingly low for any business. Without cops stationed at every station at any hour — a terrible use of NYPD manhours — people will find a way to ride the rails without paying. The new fines are certainly high enough to serve as a deterrent, and yet, a $500 fine for a fare jumper strikes me as just a wee bit excessive.

After passing through the Senate yesterday, Joe Lhota is now the MTA CEO and Chairman.

No one will ever accuse Albany of moving quickly. Two months and three weeks after Gov. Andrew Cuomo nominated Joe Lhota to serve as the next MTA CEO and Chairman, the State Senate finally voted to confirm him to the position. The vote, replete with two short committee hearings and plenty of grandstanding from Senators, carried with no nays, and Lhota will officially assume his role atop the beleaguered authority.

After the confirmation vote, as politicians issued their perfunctory congratulations, the governor was so happy that his nominees were approved that he didn’t even mention Lhota by name. “New York will benefit from the leadership and experience of these dedicated public servants,” Mr. “I Am The Government” said of Lhota and two other public authority nominees. “These new members of the administration will transform the state’s transportation and energy infrastructure while creating jobs for New Yorkers. I thank Majority Leader Skelos and Senators Fuschillo, Dilan, Ranzenhofer, Perkins, Maziarz, Parker, and DeFrancisco for the expeditious confirmation process.”

Lhota, who, as an executive at Madison Square Garden, rode the subway daily from Brooklyn Heights to Manhattan, pledged to be a “rider-chairman” during his hearings and said as much after the fact. “As a life-long New Yorker and transit rider, I understand the importance of the MTA to New York’s economy and the responsibility of being chairman,” he said. “I’m grateful to Governor Cuomo for his nomination and to the Senate for its support, and I look forward to creating a more efficient and effective MTA for our riders and New York taxpayers.”

In a sense, efficiency and effectiveness were the key words that emerged from two hours of Senate confirmation hearings. Lhota stood before first the Senate Transportation Committee and later the Senate Finance Committee as he withstood petty complaints from some of the more narrow-minded Senators and bigger-picture concerns from the few representatives in Albany who seem to understand the importance of and current problems with New York City’s transit system. From complaints about weekend service changes to rats to particularly groans about specific stations, the Senators in Albany basically reenacted what would have happened had 20 random straphangers gathered in a room to grill Lhota. Both the new Chairman and the State Senators tried their best to avoid controversial big-picture topics of government structure.

A few moments from the hearings, though, are worth our attention. The first key moment involved an exchange between Lee Zeldin, the Long Island Republican so hellbent on ripping away billions from the MTA budget, and Lhota. Every the payroll tax avenger, Zeldin said he wanted the MTA to be so accountable “for the taxpayer dollars so there isn’t a need to use taxpayer dollars at all.”

Lhota would have none of it. “There is no way the MTA can operate without taxpayer dollars. The entire operation of the MTA cannot be paid for from the riders,” he said. “It was never envisioned that way.” Throughout the hearings, Lhota repeatedly had to inform State Senators that the MTA is likely the most transparent authority in the state with voluminous budget materials available for all to see and constant audits and oversight from the city, state and federal government. These are things State Senators should know.

In another moment of candor, Eric Adams from Brooklyn’s District 20, which ends across the street from my apartment, placed much of the MTA’s problems on Albany’s shoulders. “If we want to get New Yorkers out of cars, then we need a first-class transportation system. Albany has not done enough,” he said.

Yet, as Streetsblog’s Noah Kazis noted, it wasn’t clear what would be enough. Lhota, who wasn’t there to take controversial stances, declined the opportunity to argue for bridge tolls with dedicated transit revenues. Albany, he said, determines the MTA’s funding equation, and those are decisions for state representatives to address. Instead, Lhota pledged to do the most with what the MTA has and be a better communicator — noble, if bland, goals.

Of course, no day in Albany would be complete without unnecessary references to a tired cliche, and here Lhota acquitted himself nicely. During the Finance Committee hearing, Lhota said it was time to cease repeating eight-year-old claims proven false about two sets of books. “It needs to end,” he said. “It was nothing more than a marketing gimmick by a former state controller who didn’t know what he was talking about.”

Later during the full Senate meeting on Lhota’s nomination, Velmanette Montgomery praised Lhota for the wrong reasons. She said she was pleased to hear that the MTA would no longer be keeping two sets of books because the incoming chair said “it needs to end.” That is, of course, a gross distortion of Lhota’s words but a clear sign of the kind of inept representation we enjoy in our state capital. Why listen today if you’re not going to listen for the next decade?

After the hearing, Lhota even had to clear up Montgomery’s SNAFU. “There were never two sets of books,” he said adamantly to reporters. “There will never be two sets of books.”

Ultimately, Lhota emerged from Albany displaying a measured sense of calm and a keen understanding of the MTA’s system and the challenges it faced. I was originally skeptical of his appointment as he was an executive with little background in transit, but if he’s willing to be more than a Cuomo “Yes Man,” I think he could do a good job as the new MTA CEO and Chairman. I might not be a true believer yet, but as Lhota walked away with the nomination, I was impressed. He handled himself well in the face of the same old, same old in Albany. If anything, it was a good start to a tough job.

One of my favorite books while a little kid was a simple and clever story by Laura Numeroff called If You Give A Mouse A Cookie. It isn’t some tale of horror about NYC Department of Health inspection grades. Rather, it is a nicely-illustrated tale of a young boy who befriends a mouse by giving him a cookie and the consequences of that cookie. If he has a cookie, the mouse want some milk, and if he has milk, he wants to check the mirror to see if he has a milk mustache, but then he notices he needs a hair cut. And on and on and on.

While this mouse, which went on to spawn numerous other titles in the If You Give a ____ A ____ series, isn’t meant to be some parable for politicians passed on to little kids, the same thing applies. If you give a politician even a tiny slimmer of something he or she wants, she’ll demand the rest until there’s nothing left. Lately, the MTA has become a victim of just such a demand.

Our story begins a few years ago, when Albany approved a controversial package of taxes and fees designed to boost the MTA’s sagging bottom line. Instead of tying in a congestion pricing or bridge tolling plan with transit dollars, the state punted on the more sensible solution for a piece of legislation that included a substantial payroll tax on businesses in the counties served by the MTA. It was immediately unpopular, and numerous Republicans campaigned on a pledge of repeal.

Symbolically this year, the repeal passed the State Senate, but it was DOA in the Assembly. Despite his opposition to congestion pricing, Sheldon Silver knows the MTA needs money, and he wasn’t even going to entertain the idea of a payroll tax repeal. But then Gov. Andrew “I am the government” Cuomo got involved. In a comprehensive tax code overhaul, he jettisoned approximately 20 percent of the revenue from the payroll tax by eliminating the tax on businesses of a certain size. Somehow, he claimed, the MTA would get its money.

“Victory!” proclaimed the usual band of anti-payroll tax voices. As we know, they are cheering on the wrong thing, but they’ll learn the hard way once the MTA must cut services to make up the budget differential. After the initial euphoria of achieving this success wore off, it was time to fight anew. After all, if you give a representative a tax break, he’ll want another one.

And so now we have folks from Orange County issuing dire proclamations. “Not one business should be paying for this tax,” Chester Supervisor Steve Neuhaus, Crawford Supervisor Charles Carnes and Deerpark Supervisor Karl Brabenec all said in a joint statement. “Not one taxpayer should be paying this tax. Unfortunately, until this law goes away completely, they will continue to suffer.”

And we have folks from Hauppauge and Rockland County who want the tax fully repealed. Lee Zeldin, the voice of the repeal movement who has never had a better idea for MTA funding, held a victory rally and pledged to push forward for a full repeal. If you give an inch, someone will try to take a yard.

Of course, the MTA can’t afford to see more money taken away. That’s why the agency is so diligent in its actions and yet so political in its statements concerning state subsidies. As the MTA knows, just as when a bus line is cut so too when a subsidy is cut, it never returns. The state won’t reinstate the payroll tax, and every time it removes money that’s supposed to boost transit, the MTA has to figure out a way to reorganize its budget or cut services or raise fares or all three.

A few voices of reason have tried to reach through the din. One Nassau County writer chided the Governor for failing to identify an adequate alternate revenue source for the MTA before doing away with the payroll tax, and our mayor was even more strident in his critique. “You say, ‘Why should somebody upstate be paying for mass transit in the New York City region?’” he said. “The answer is, I suppose, the city is the economic engine of the state. We export money to other counties. They don’t quite see it that way, but that is in fact the way the funds go, and we’re all in this together.”

Perhaps the Mayor should tell that to his upstate compatriots. They’re too busy, though, asking for a glass of milk now that they’ve had that first bite of the cookie.