MTA Politics

It’s safe to say that Chuck Schumer and Chris Christie aren’t friends. As I explored, New York’s senior senator had some choice words for the New Jersey governor at a Crain’s Breakfast yesterday. Amidst a speech about the need to invest in the region’s infrastructure, the senator slammed Christie for canceling the ARC Tunnel and setting back the region’s progress. It is, by now, a familiar refrain.

But while Schumer’s fight with his cross-Hudson, cross-aisle rival made headlines, the rest of his speech is worthy of attention to. His summed up his focus thusly: “It has been one of the particular geniuses of New York going back centuries that we have always recognized the importance of investing in infrastructure, even when others did not.”

Today, it might seem a bit unwieldy to praise our infrastructure efforts. New York’s subway system and road network are not in the best of shape, and the advancements we’re making seem, like the Second Ave. Subway, costly or, like the 7 Line extension, misguided at best. Still, Schumer praised even these small signs of forward movement. “On the Upper East Side, the Second Avenue subway is finally becoming a reality,” he said. “Although progress remains slower than we would like, the fact that we are in the ground and actually moving ahead after eighty years of discussion and abortive starts is a great achievement…Ultimately, when all four phases of the Second Avenue Subway are completed, we will be improving the commute of over half a million riders every day.”

During the speech, Schumer spoke at length about the why of it all. “Without increased capacity, Manhattan, and the surrounding areas that depend on it, would stop growing. Our competitive advantage would become a disadvantage if something was not done,” he said while touting the benefits of the East Side Access plan.

After slamming Christie’s decision as the moment when “the region stopped looking toward the future,” Schumer let loose his litany of desired improvements. He wants New York to embrace high-speed rail; he wants a one-seat ride to Laguardia; he wants to make sure our region’s over-taxed airports can meet the demands of travel in 2011. “For New York to continue to thrive in the 21st century, we must continue to make major investments in its transportation system,” he said. “These are the projects which will fuel the region’s economic growth for the coming decades.”

With a rhetorical flourish, he ended where one would expect him to end. “In today’s competitive global economy,” he said, “to stand still is to fall further and further behind. We cannot let that happen.”

It all sounds good. Schumer has always had a knack for saying the right things, but his actions over the years have spoken louder than words. He might talk about investing in infrastructure, and he might deliver federal grants now and then. He was certainly instrumental in getting the Second Ave. Subway off the drawing board and into the ground, but his leadership on most transit issues has been mostly non-existent/

What Schumer hasn’t done for New York and its infrastructure is substantial. He didn’t lead an effort to secure emergency federal funds to help transit authorities ease operating deficits and avoid criplping fare hikes and service cuts. He hasn’t played a role in ensuring that the MTA is adequately funded, that a congestion pricing funding scheme passed through Albany or that the MTA’s current $10 billion capital budget hole is closed.

New York City and its subway system won’t sink if Schumer neglects it or continues his laissez-faire approach to transit. Furthermore, many of these issues are far more relevant at the state level than in Congress, but with the largest transit-riding constituency in the country. Schumer should be doing more. This year, facing capital needs and a hazy operations outlook, the MTA needs all the help it can get, and New York’s powerful senator should be able to deliver.

The 1991 derailment north of Union Square led to justify lawsuits but not all accidents are as cut-and-dry as that one.

Every now and then, accidents involving the MTA make their ways into the news. Last week, we heard the horrific tale of a man crushed by the platform extenders at Union Square, and over the weekend, a disabled man lost control of his wheelchair and ended up in the tracks. Earlier this year, the MTA lost a $7 million judgment in a case in which the jury found a bus driver at fault in an collision with another vehicle. Eventually, the legal bills mount up.

In his column in the Daily News yesterday, Pete Donohue highlights the MTA’s liability gap. He found that, in many cases, the authority is losing to plaintiffs who were at fault. The piece leads with the story of one Dustin Dibble who fell onto the tracks while “drunk as a skunk,” lost his leg to a train car and won a $2.3 million judgment against the MTA. While plaintiff’s attorneys who are willing to take on these cases may carry some of the blame, Donohue highlights how open-ended liability costs the cash-strapped authority. He writes:

There’s no shortage of culprits behind the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s constant cash crisis, which translates into fare hikes, service cuts and dirtier stations for riders. And somewhere on that list are boneheads who have no one but themselves to blame for being in the path of a subway train – as well as their opportunistic lawyers.

The state Legislature also deserves mention. The MTA has asked for a law clearly stating the obvious: Someone on the tracks because of their own recklessness shouldn’t be able to sue when a motorman doesn’t manage to stop a 400-ton train in time. The Legislature has failed to act. So, the lawsuits keep coming.

In one recent case, a 30-year-old man riding a bicycle on a subway platform crashed into a column and careened to the tracks, where he was struck. In another, a vandal filed a lawsuit after getting hit in a tunnel; he was trespassing to spray-paint graffiti. While the MTA wins a majority of such cases, it can take years of motions and appeals, all of which take money and effort better spent elsewhere. When it loses, the payouts are big – millions of dollars because of the severe nature of injuries.

Donohue sums up the morality behind Dibble’s case. The now-26-year-old deserves “sympathy – but not a seven-figure payday at riders’ expense,” and it sounds as though the state courts agree. The Appellate Division tossed out the $2.3 million award earlier this summer, calling it “utterly irrational.” The law firm of Smiley and Smiley plans to appeal, and the MTA’s legal bills will mount.

But how big of a problem is it? Earlier this year, the MTA released some statistics concerning its legal cases. In 2009, those injured filed 2720 claims against Transit, and only 216 of those went to trial. The agency won 65 percent of those trials, and since 2005, the agency has a similar percentage of the 870 cases to go to trial. Still, NYC Transit paid out $244.8 million in injury claims from 2005-2009 or close to $50 million annually. The bills mount up.

Tort law and personal injury law certainly has its place underground, and riders need protection from the MTA’s potential negligence. But at some point, straphangers have to take personal responsibility. While a jury may find a graffiti artists who wandered into the tracks to tag an abandoned tunnel contributorily negligent, the MTA can’t operate efficiently if it expects to find people illegally in its tunnels. The state should indeed grant the authority this protection. After all, more riders would benefit from the cost savings generated by looser liability standards than would suffer the consequences of their careless acts.

Reinvent Albany's report urges Gov.-elect Andrew Cuomo to protect dedicated transit funds. (Read the PDF here)

For the last few years, transit advocates have decried the state’s stealin’ ways. Last year, New York legislature approved a budget in early December that took $143 million in MTA money and removed it back to the general fund. Thus, the authority had to implement a sweeping array of service cuts in mid-2010. The same could very well happen again before the end of this year, and Gov.-elect Andrew Cuomo seems to have no problem raiding the MTA.

In an effort to shore up the authority’s fiscal security, transit groups are searching for a solution. In California, a new measure approved by voters acts as a constitutional amendment that bars the state from moving money specific earmarked for one purpose to another. In effect, the West Coast leader in car use has created a transit lockbox well before the idea has gained significant political traction in New York state.

Now a new group called Reinvent Albany that is aiming to promote a fair, accountable and effective state government has issued a report urging Cuomo to protect dedicated transit funding through an Executive Order. As part of a report containing 11 EOs Cuomo could sign immediately to improve the state’s government, Reinvent Albany, run by John Kaehny for whom I’m doing an MTA budget project, has garnered of seven advocacy groups including the Tri-State Transportation Campaign and Transportation Alternatives to sign for its lockbox order.

“These orders are tailor made for Governor Cuomo to use to launch his campaign to transform New York government,” said Kaehny. “Governor Cuomo will have enormous unilateral power to make government more open and accountable. The ball is in his court to do that.”

The order in question proposes in part:

1. The Executive Branch, including the Division, shall not request, recommend, or order appropriations, across-the-board cuts, or programmatic budgets, or any other action that diverts dedicated funds or dedicated revenue sources from the intended and sole purpose defined in the legislation that originally established them.

2. The Executive Branch, including the Division, shall propose a budget that transfers dedicated revenues directly to the dedicated funds, authorities or agencies they were enacted to support.

3. The Division shall not implement or propose across-the-board cuts that have the effect of diverting dedicated revenues from the dedicated funds, authorities or agencies they were enacted to support.

It would require the creation of “a clear and easily understandable description of how dedicated revenues and funds are raised and spent, highlighting and explaining the diversions of dedicated revenues and funds.” This information would be maintained on the New York State Division of Budget’s website for all to see.

In essence, such a move would inform voters of the MTA’s financial status and show how the actions and decisions of our elected representatives — the same representatives who bash the MTA over service cuts — lead to those service cuts. Now that the EOs are out there, it’s imperative that Cuomo gives the idea serious thought. He has said very little of any comfort on transit, and while an EO can’t replace legislative action, it can usher in better government and wiser choices. If not, the future of the MTA and transit in New York City may be a tenuous one indeed.

As Andrew Cuomo prepares to take over the Governor’s Mansion in Albany, he’s going to have to deal with the MTA sooner or later. Despite his non-statements on transit during the campaign, Cuomo’s team will have to identify funding sources for the MTA’s operating budget and address a gap in the authority’s capital budget as well. Early indications are that another MTA raid may happen soon and that Cuomo’s proposed spending cap could unnecessarily hinder transit investments.

In addition to these problems of funding, Cuomo also needs to restore public confidence in the MTA. Despite the fact that the authority has cut 3500 jobs and removed $500 million from its budget this year and over $700 million going forward, politicians just aren’t listening. Take, for instance, a letter from Mike Long, the chairman of the state’s small Conservative Party. While Long obviously has an agenda, his letter is another anti-MTA screed that ignores reality. He writes:

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is notorious for increasing fees instead of looking for ways to cut expenses and frankly, New York’s citizens are unable to absorb the latest increase set to begin on December 30, 2010.

On behalf of all New Yorkers, I am asking you to do all in your power to prevent the MTA from collecting the tolls and fees set to increase at the end of next month. If the officials of the MTA fail to follow your request, I would encourage you to include as one of your very first priorities, as Governor of the State of New York, the rollback of the increased fees and tolls on our bridges and tunnels. If the MTA Board Members continue to deny your request, I would encourage you to demand an audit to expose how the MTA mismanages its funds, has not reduced its workforce, will not streamline bus and subway routes and schedules, and its dependence on the outrageous tolls paid by the driving public to subsidize losses due to poor management. The present toll on the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge of $11.00 is outrageous; to increase it to $13.00 is unconscionable.

On the one hand, Long is playing fast and loose with the facts. The Verrazano toll will be $13 only for the very small percentage of people who pay cash only. The E-ZPass rate will keep the toll under $10, and Staten Island residents who use an E-ZPass will pay $5.76. That’s hardly unconscionable. He also lays claim to the believe that “instead of looking for ways to cut expenses,” the MTA is raising fares and tolls when in reality, they’re raising fares and tolls after they both cut expenses and had money stolen by the state.

On the other hand though, Long’s statements, while factually questionable, highlight a deeper problem: The MTA is suffering from a credibility gap. So even if the authority says it will cut hundreds of millions of dollars and then does so, politicians will not examine the books to verify the claims. They’ll simply dismiss them out of hand.

At this point, Andrew Cuomo has to figure out a way to restore some level of public confidence in the qualified people atop the MTA. Perhaps he should order Thomas DiNapoli, the state comptroller who just won reelection, to complete a forensic audit on the MTA. If — or when — this audit finds that the authority has indeed streamlined operations and trimmed costs, who will the politicians finger then? They certainly won’t blame themselves even when they should.

Throughout October’s campaign season as the MTA repeatedly came under fire, those running for office continued to call for more direct control over the MTA Board. Some of the candidates wanted to bring the MTA under the auspices of the New York State Department of Transportation or under the direct control of the governor. Others even advocated for the direct election of MTA Board representatives. New York politicians, it seems, do not know their history.

Once upon a time, the city’s transit oversight fell to the Board of Transportation, a six-man body appointed solely by the mayor. Transit policy was highly political, and it led to both disastrous fare policies and overbuilt subway lines. It is impossible to raise the fare when politicians are held directly accountable for those hikes, and even though we dislike fare hikes, it is often necessary to raise fares at the very least to keep pace with inflation.

Cap’n Transit has another take on the issue. He explores the idea within the framework of democracy, access and accountability. I’ll quote at length but do visit the good Captain’s site:

Many years ago, I was in an officer of a small student political group in a distant city, and I got a call from a bicycle activist I knew. He wasn’t a member of our organization, or even our political party, but he was running for election to an obscure municipal board that just happened to have influence over bicycle policy. I helped this guy reach out to the student body in a way that clearly violated campus rules, and he won by a small margin, quite possibly entirely due to that outreach. Now that city has over four hundred miles of bicycle facilities.

Sounds great, right? The results are impressive, but the whole thing was completely undemocratic. A tiny, dedicated group was able to sway an election to represent a fifth of the city. Only a small number of people were informed enough to know who they were voting for when they went into the booth. If you want democracy, you want the issues and agendas to be disclosed and debated well in advance. The only reason I feel comfortable with this is the knowledge that the pro-car people were pulling the same kinds of tricks. It was a dirty fight, so we fought dirty.

I’m pretty sure that this kind of dirty politics…is the kind of thing that regularly happens on school boards around the country. If you’ve been paying attention for the past year and a half, you’ll be well aware of the number of people who haven’t. Very few people know who their State Legislators are, and of those people, a tiny proportion know that these legislators have been redirecting money “dedicated” to the transit system for other purposes. Would you trust these people to vote for a representative to the MTA board?

…The most democratic way to run New York’s transit system is to have it be an executive agency just like the Department of Transportation…In fact, it might not have been as easy for Cuomo to duck the question of transit funding for as long as he did, if it had been clearly spelled out that the Governor controls the subway system.

Even beyond the theoretical, the MTA was born out of the need to remove transit decision-making from the political sphere. Politicians shouldn’t be making technocrat decisions that demand and require a certain expertise that they don’t possess, and I’d much rather have Jay Walder heading the MTA than suffering through a politically-dominated authority board. Fares cannot rise appropriately and service cannot be adjusted to meet demands without the right people making the decisions.

The real problem — and it’s not a sexy one — is oversight. Despite a new authority oversight board that doesn’t yet have much teeth, New York doesn’t have an adequate mechanism for authority oversight. The mayor has a few votes on the MTA Board and so too does the governor. But absent legislative action and the power of appointment*, there is no executive control over the MTA Board.

*It would help if the state executive would appoint qualified people to the Board as well. In the past, real estate interests dominated the MTA Board when a proper mix of people would involve transit planners, financial experts, union representatives and rider advocates. Eliot Spitzer’s and David Paterson’s appointments have been strong steps in the right direction.

So fix the MTA, if it’s truly broken, by consolidating power but do so in a way that doesn’t jeopardize fiscal contributions. The mayor wants his say and can threaten to remove funding if the governor seizes the MTA. The governor might want oversight but can’t risk losing the money. Even outside of the realm of politics, the MTA is still a political problem.