MTA Politics

Every day, more than five million people swipe into the New York City subway system, and another two million take the bus. On a typical weekday, then, the equivalent of nearly everyone in New York City rides public transit, and while that figure may double-count a good number of people making the roundtrip to and from work or school, the fact remains that, without the subway system and its bus network, New York City would not be as prosperous, popular and big as it is today.

Yet, if there is one political and economic topic about which New Yorkers know very little, it is transportation. Most people you stop on the street could offer a semi-informed opinion on foreign relations in the Middle East, health care policy or the Tea Party. Few can speak eloquently or with knowledge about the MTA’s relationship with Albany, its budgetary woes, the rationale, however shaky it may be, behind the payroll tax or the reasons behind the fare policy. In fact, when the media runs fare-hike reaction stories that focus on Person-on-the-Street responses, the sheer ignorance of New Yorkers is laid bare for all to see.

Two articles published online today in the wake of yesterday’s fare hike vote are indicative of this problem. Roger Clark from NY1 filed a reaction piece that focused on riders’ responses. He stationed himself in the Atlantic Ave./Pacific St. station and asked for thoughts on the higher fares. The answers are typically inane.

Take, for instance, Debra Reed. A year’s worth of 30-day cards will cost $180 more in 2011 than they did in 2010, and for Ms. Reed, that $180 will push her to even more expensive and less efficient mode of transportation. “I’m really considering buying a car, it may be cheaper, come out cheaper buying a car,” she said. Perhaps Ms. Reed plans to steal a car, commit insurance fraud and siphon off gas from parked vehicles all while not maintaining her car. Perhaps then, she’ll find that owning a car will actually cost less than the extra $180 per year.

DNA Info’s Jill Colvin tracked down some similar-minded passengers. In an article that focuses first on the details — fare hikes will be instituted on December 30 because it’s a weekday; the MTA won’t allow MetroCard hoarding — Colvin finds a few know-nothings to interview. She writes: “Student Joel Lucca, 20, who lives in the Bronx, said he’s considering buying a car, since the cost of gas would be cheaper than his commute each day. Chris Lark, 34, a computer technician who lives in East Harlem, said he’s planning on driving more or riding his bike instead of the train to save cash.”

Now, I can’t blame Mr. Lark for proclaiming the allure of a bike. Some of my good friends have done the math and have determined that for the warm-weather months, at least, their 30-day MetroCards, with a new break-even point of 50 rides, will give way to a pay-per-ride card and a bike. But the idea that buying a car because gas is cheaper than commute or that paying for gas saves cash are mind-bogglingly wrong.

To own a car in New York City is not an inexpensive proposition. The state’s auto insurance rates, averaging $1083 a year –or just $200 less than 12 30-day MetroCards — are among the highest in the nation; annual registration fees, with a New York City surcharge of $30, are very steep; and annual maintenance, upkeep and parking rates will drain anyone’s wallet at a rate that far exceeds $104 a month. Gas too averages $2.84 per gallon right now. It may very well be that Colvin and Clark found just three out of three hundred people who want to drive, but that they chose to highlight it speaks volumes about the windshield perspective of public transit coverage in the New York media.

Meanwhile, I haven’t even begun to dissect quotes from people slamming the MTA Board for keeping the money, for keeping two sets of books, for being out-of-touch with the economic plight of “real New Yorkers,” for trying to screw over everybody. Even though the MTA keeps its books wide open, and advocates have fought to show how Albany hasn’t done the job, New Yorkers still think the MTA is out to get them.

That said, both Clark and Colvin spoke to New Yorkers who seem to get it. “You always mind paying extra but if you have to, as long as it is being used to maintain the subway system and pay the employees that keep the system running, it’s kind of one of those unnecessary, or necessary evils I should say,” one rider said to NY1.

The media is supposed to be a tool for disseminating information and for public education. But news outlets continue to run Person-On-The-Street because they’re easy. The reporters can solicit opinions and package it is a “reaction” piece. Without fact-checking people who claim that cars are cheaper than a fare hike, without providing that political or economic perspective, public transit and the fight for proper funding will remain in neutral no matter how loud advocates scream.

For the most part, the MTA has not played a starring role in the race for governor of New York. Despite the authority’s financial struggles and the attack on the payroll tax from the area’s suburban counties, neither Republican candidate Carl Paladino nor Democratic nominee Andrew Cuomo have paid more than lip service to the MTA. That changed yesterday.

While fighting against a 24-point deficit in the latest polls, Paladino opined on the MTA during a Crain’s breakfast yesterday. The Daily News’ Daily Politics has the transcript, and Paladino’s remarks on the MTA are what you would expect:

I’m going to take the MTA apart piece by piece. I will put it under a microscope. I will put competent management in, management that really understands how to work and how we efficiently and cost-productively work. … I will take it apart piece by piece. I will expose it to the people. And then you see how fast the legislature lets me take the MTA and bring it back into the government, back under the control of the New York State Department of Transportation, and back under the control of the people. Because right now this faceless giant is killing this community. It’s, it’s horrible, the effect.

Despite this pledge, the GOP nominee also said he would fire Jay Walder, a statement that makes me believe he hasn’t been paying attention. For all of the MTA’s faults, Walder has led an effort to trim over $700 million in annual spending from the MTA’s budget. If that’s not competent management, I’m not sure what is, and for that alone, he should not be fired before his six-year term is up.

Anyway, as with most politician of any persuasion in New York, Paladino doesn’t seem to understand that the MTA is a creature of the state of New York. There’s no need to put the MTA under the control of the Department of Transportation — another bureaucratic nightmare — when the state Senate and Assembly already has oversight control over the MTA and the Governor can appoint the authority’s head. Instead of a real discourse on the state’s transportation needs, it seems as though New York voters are just going to get the same old, same old from its candidates.

Nassau County has not invested in its own bus system. (Graph via TSTC)

For nearly 40 years, the MTA has seemingly begrudgingly operated the Nassau County bus system. In a compromise borne out of transportation and fiscal necessity, the MTA agreed to take over the county’s bus system in 1973 when the various private operators were on the verge of bankruptcy. In exchange for $14 million from the county and feds along with a promise from Nassau County to cover the new bus routes’ operating deficits, the Metropolitan Suburban Bus Authority would assume control of the buses. It hasn’t been an easy marriage.

Over the years, Nassau County and the MTA have disagreed over, well, everything. At various times, the MTA has overbilled Nassau County for services while Nassau County has scaled back its contributions to the Long Island Bus budget. As recently as 2000, state officials called for a complete takeover of the Nassau County bus system by the MTA in order for the county to avoid $20 million in operating contributions to its own bus system, and in 2003, the MTA and Nassau County came to a last-minute agreement to avoid bus cuts.

Yet again, a conflict between Nassau County and the MTA is boiling over, and officials on both sides of the table are digging in for a great game of chicken. The problem is simple: The Long Island bus routes cost $133.1 million to run, and Nassau County contributes just $9 million of that total. The state picks up nearly $45 million, and the MTA must foot the bill for the difference. It is, said Newsday, a “sweetheart subsidy” for an agency that can ill afford to pay.

So, as they do every few years, the MTA is threatening to cut Long Island Bus service until Nassau County ponies up, and no one likes that. As I reported a few weeks ago, Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano issued a call for Jay Walder’s resignation, and Nassau County has begun to accept bids for a privatized bus system. Apparently, the lessons of the 1960s are lost upon the current generations of leaders.

This drama has continued to advance over the last few weeks. As the Tri-State Transportation Campaign reported on Friday, the new Nassau County budget is well over $2 billion, and it contains no more than the same $9.1 million for the bus system. The MTA, much to the transit organization’s chagrin, refuses to budge. TSTC offered up a common-sense solution:

A logical compromise would be for Nassau County to increase its contribution over time in return for continued MTA support. Instead, the county has offered red herrings like calling for a privatized bus system, suing the MTA over the payroll tax, and the call for Walder’s head. The Newsday editorial board called this a “cheap shot” and an attempt to “distract attention from the challenges of coming up with a 2011 budget,” which would ostensibly be where the County would propose how it would fund LI Bus with or without the MTA’s subsidy.

With a structural deficit of $286 million, Nassau County has claimed poverty, perhaps rightfully so. But if Suffolk and Westchester Counties can find a way to fund buses in these tough economic times, so can Nassau. It’s not as if Nassau County isn’t willing to spend money on transportation. Even with its deficit, the County recently decided to appropriate $3 million to widen and repair Jackson Avenue in Syosset.

If this sounds like a familiar drama, that’s because it’s nearly identical to the Student MetroCard debate. There, the state and city promised to fund student transit on an equal footing with the MTA and never upheld their ends of the bargain. Today, we’re back at an equilibrium point where the state and city still contribute far less than they should. I’d imagine a similar compromise will be reached in Nassau County when the county officials find a few more million for the MTA.

This whole drama though is just a microcosm for the way the state treats transit. No one wants to fund the various agencies tasked with running our subways and buses, and politicians would rather snipe than make tough funding choices. While some groups have proposed making MTA Board spots open to public election as a way to increase public accountability, the politicians who control the purse strings would be no more or less responsive to public needs than they are today, and as this transit drama plays out on Long Island, a county may lose its bus service.

Marist poll results highlight how public sympathies do not lie with the MTA. (Graphic via The Wall Street Journal)

The New York City Transit Authority was born out of the need to divorce subway fare rates from politics. For too long, Big Apple politicians had run on campaign promises of maintaining the five- and later the ten-cent fare, and because of the political armageddon that would fall on anyone who raised the fares, the subways had fallen into an economic crisis.

In terms of fare policy, then, the TA has served its goal, but instead of isolating the subways from the political process, the MTA has become a pawn in the political game. Since New Yorkers will never be happy with the combination of low fares, a system still struggling to escape the specter of the nickel fare and current levels of subway service, politicians can exploit that distrust and dislike of the MTA for political gain. Even as Albany takes dedicated funds away from the subway system, politicians blame the TA for its own economic woes.

Apparently, the public is listening, too, but to the wrong people. A Marist poll released today says that 61 percent of New Yorkers say the MTA is most to blame for the fare hikes and service cuts. The remaining 39 percent are split among Mayor Michael Bloomberg (17 percent), the state legislature which charters and funds the MTA (12 percent) and Gov. David Paterson (10).

Transit advocates have long tried to educate voters on issues relating to subway funding, but most, says Andrew Grossman of The Wall Street Journal, just aren’t listening. He writes:

The uncertain budget picture has some advocacy groups trying to increase pressure on candidates to support new funding streams for the MTA, such as congestion pricing—a scheme, championed by Mr. Bloomberg, to charge drivers to enter crowded parts of Manhattan during the day. It has failed to gain support in the Legislature.

The MTA doesn’t “print their own money. They don’t control the state budget and they certainly don’t control the dedicated taxes that the legislature can pass to fund them,” said Noah Budnick, the deputy director of Transportation Alternatives, a group that tries to persuade people to find other ways to travel than driving. Mr. Budnick’s group is running a “Rider Rebellion” campaign that seeks to put pressure on candidates to support more funding for mass transit.

Such efforts aimed solely at Albany risk alienating supporters of the MTA in the Legislature, warns Assemb. Richard Brodsky, a Westchester Democrat who chairs the committee that oversees the agency. Mr. Brodsky is running for Attorney General in Tuesday’s Democratic primary. “The obvious answer is that everybody is at fault,” Mr. Brodsky said. “It’s a confluence of failures, and no one is exempt from them.” He said the MTA still has inefficiencies that need to be solved.

On the one hand, Brodsky’s answer is the obvious one, but on the other hand, his august legislative body isn’t doing their part. The MTA has cut hundreds of millions of dollars for its budget this year while Albany has engaged in theft. The state hasn’t been willing to consider a congestion pricing plan or a tolling plan that would more evenly share the funding burden, and they have replenished the state’s general fund with $143 million from the MTA’s coffers. The MTA might be easy to blame and should carry some of that load, but Albany deserves far more spite than it receives.

Later today — at 5:15 in front of the Cooper Union — the Straphangers Campaign, Transportation Alternatives, the Tri-State Transportation Campaign and the Pratt Center for Community Development — will announce its opposition to the fare hikes and suggest other ways in which the MTA, with some help from Albany, could raise the money it needs to raise. Late last week, Gene Russianoff sent Jay Walder a letter about the MTA’s fare hike proposal. The missive, available here, asks how the MTA arrived at its current proposal and how the fare hike would impact ridership, questions the MTA has yet to answer fully. This is the work politicians should be doing with an assist from the Straphangers, and yet Russianoff is left largely to fend for himself.

In the end, this Marist poll shows how people don’t have a firm view of New York City subway policies. According to respondents, a whopping 29 percent of them use MTA services less frequently than they did before the cuts, but the MTA says that ridership is actually staying steady after the cuts, if not increasing as the city’s economy rebounds. From pointing fingers to assessing riding patterns, New Yorkers seem to have a long way to go before they fully grasp how the subways work politically, and although the MTA shouldn’t get a free ride, as long as voters aren’t willing to hold politicians responsible, the economic situation and our subway system simply will not improve.

Earlier this summer, word leaked out that the MTA may cut sever its Long Island Bus service. Owned by Nassau County, the bus routes just east of Queens are operated at a tremendous loss by the MTA, and the county pays just $9.1 million out of the agency’s $133 million operating costs. Now, as the MTA’s budget problems are coming to a head and the Long Island Bus remains in the crossfires, the Nassau County Executive has called for Jay Walder’s resignation.

Speaking earlier today of the problems plaguing the MTA, Edward Mangano issued a stunning call for the authority’s CEO and Chairman’s head. “New Yorkers are paying higher fares, businesses are paying a job-killing payroll tax and LI Bus faces extinction as a result of Walder’s threats,” Mangano said. “Taxpayers deserve accountability, and for that reason, I am calling on our gubernatorial candidates to pledge new leadership at the MTA in January.”

As Newsday’s subscriber-only article notes, Mangano’s posturing stems from the dispute over the bus company. The MTA wants the state and Nassau County to fork over $100 million to cover the LI Bus operations costs while Nassau County is a party to the lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the payroll tax. Apparently, it’s beyond Mangano’s ability to understand that the payroll tax was approved long before Jay Walder returned from England to run the MTA.

Meanwhile, Mangano, who makes around $175,000 a year, criticized Walder’s salary. “This Labor Day, families sat around the barbecue worrying about how to afford to get to work because of Walder’s mismanagement,” he said. “Earning a $350,000 salary plus a generous housing allowance, Walder has taken taxpayers for a ride.”

Of course, Mangano failed to mention that, if Walder is removed from the MTA in January, he’ll be owned another $350,000 as part of his Golden Parachute payments. How would the taxpayers stomach this move?

Jay Walder has not had a perfect tenure as the head of the MTA. He hasn’t had the best of relationships with labor, and although he was brought in on the promise of financial stability and with a mandate to modernize the subway system, he has had to face a crushing financial crisis brought about, in part, because of the actions of the New York State legislature. He is a lifetime transit planner with the credentials to head the MTA and has taken the economic bull by the horns as much as anyone in his position has. He’s made some question hiring decisions and has had to fire a lot of people, but he’s not going anywhere.

Edward Mangano knows this just as you and I do. Mangano might not know that the MTA’s problems stem from state inaction. Why should the MTA spend $100 million for Nassau County bus service? Because Nassau County has spent a decade reducing its operating contributions to its own bus system, and Mangano is just part of that problem. Like every New York politician though, he’d rather just blame someone else.

Fourteen years ago, the 47th District in Brooklyn elected William Colton, a Democrat, to to serve as its Assembly representative. His district includes Bensonhurst, Gravesend, Bath Beach, Dyker Heights and Midwood, transit-heavy areas that depend on numerous subway lines and bus routes to connect it with the rest of New York City.

Colton’s district is a minority in New York City in that more than 50 percent of his constituents are car owners. According to stale numbers, 46.1 percent of households in District 47 do not own cars while 53.9 percent do. However, only 3.2 percent of drivers head into Manhattan’s Central Business District from Colton’s area while 31.2 percent of workers take transit to that CBD. Still, Assembly representative Colton can join the long and growing list of Albany representatives who are happy to bash the MTA with one hand while taking the agency’s money away with the other.

Colton’s comments come to us from the Brooklyn Eagle in what appears to be a press release. The Assembly rep is upset about the elimination of numerous station agents. “The MTA has been going down a dangerous path of reducing front-line personnel to a minimum,” Colton said. “Leaving booths in portions of major stations closed inconveniences people from all walks of life, including the elderly, disabled and other persons needing assistance. Closing these booths, some of which are the only booths serving a station entrance, is a disgrace.”

He continued with a typical rant about the MTA’s service becoming akin to that offered in the 1970s when track fires, massive delays and rampant problems were the norm. With new rolling stock and an investment into the physical plant of the subways, no comparison less apt. “It’s time to look at reorganizing the MTA into an agency which is focused on improving transit and increasing service, not raising fares and cutting service. If we fail to change course, we risk our subway degrading into a crime-ridden, unreliable service such as existed in the 1970s.”

The MTA is doing everything Colton accuses it of doing, but for someone who has shown no willingness to support transit, his moralizing rubs me the wrong. Colton, who claims that the MTA is “failing to meet the public need for safe and reliable public transit,” has been nothing but bad for transit. In 2008, despite the make-up of his district, he didn’t support congestion pricing and couched his opposition in populist terms. At the time, he said that the city’s “real goal of the proposal is to provide a new revenue source from the middle class and working poor.” Never mind the fact that middle and working class residents simply do not own cars or, if they do, do not drive into Manhattan’s CBD during the congestion pricing hours. Never mind the fact that these residents would stand to benefit from investments in transit.

His finest moment came when he levied this claim, using what I would call reverse logic to take apart congestion pricing:

In fact passage of this plan will almost guarantee a large fare increase because whatever monies which are given to the MTA will not be used to pay for public transit improvements but instead will be used to collateralize borrowing which will result in higher future interest payments which public transit users will need to repay with higher fares. Therefore it will not encourage people to use cars since use of mass transit will be almost as expensive. The congestion fee will impact on those with low and middle incomes and will have little impact on the wealthy who will simply use it as a business deduction.

Colton did not stop in 2008 or start bashing the MTA yesterday. Earlier this year, he called for the authority to inform community boards of changes to station staffing levels and has, as Cap’n Transit noted, called for eliminating waste and corruption. He also voted for removing $143 million in earmarked money from the MTA’s coffers late last year.

The problem with Colton’s position is the noise. The MTA should be more willing to talk about the safety impact of cutting station agents. MTA leadership has engaged in an extensive effort to cut waste at all levels. But the MTA can’t fund station agents without money, and Colton is just one of many who has worked to undercut the MTA’s funding streams. He hasn’t approved measures — such as congestion pricing — that the majority of New Yorkers support, and he voted to take away earmarked dollars. His left hand is criticizing the MTA for actions of his right, and that cannot stand.

Most Assembly members don’t seem to know what happens on the Assembly floor.

For transit advocates, Albany is the gift that keeps on giving but in the wrong vein. Representative after representative spew falsehoods about the state of public transit funding in New York City, the MTA’s role in the budget crisis and their duties to their constituents. Yesterday, I challenged Jose Peralta’s open letter to Jay Walder. Today, even more state officials are commenting in ways that are both stunningly inept and illuminating.

This tale starts with Peralta’s letter. In it, the good Senator from Queens accuses the MTA of suffering from the political equivalent of Munchausen Syndrome. “While the state Senate,” he said, “is working to restore public transportation cuts, the MTA has chosen to distort this fact in an effort to conceal its own budgetary failures.” The truth is that the State Senate voted to withdraw $143 million in what was supposed to be dedicated MTA revenues and use it in the state’s general fund instead. The MTA has highlighted this fact, and Peralta has taken exception to that reality. He isn’t alone.

In a post on the SILive.com politics blog that got lost over the July 4th weekend, Tom Wrobleski talks to some Staten Island reps about the state of transit funding, and their comments show an utter lack of preparedness and legislative understanding. The narrative is a simple one: Constituents facing election challenges are under fire for their willingness to vote away that $143 million and sit idly by while the MTA enacted a sweeping array of service cuts that hit Staten Island bus commuters particularly hard. I’ll let Wrobleski tell the story:

Republican Nicole Malliotakis took Assemblywoman Janele Hyer-Spencer (D-East Shore/Brooklyn) to task for the vote, but Ms. Hyer-Spencer wasn’t alone in voting to move the money. State Sen. Diane Savino and Assemblymen Mike Cusick and Matt Titone, Democrats all, also voted for the plan.

We don’t know if she’ll get any credit for this, but Ms. Savino (D-North Shore/Brooklyn) admitted that she wasn’t aware that the MTA money was part of the plan. “Most of us didn’t realize what was in that reduction plan,” she told us. “That’s the truth. Sometimes, you only see the big picture. The devil is in the details.”

Ms. Savino said that lawmakers were concerned with meeting the overall financial goal of reducing the state deficit when they cast their votes. “It should not have been done that way,” she said. “But it was done. We took $143 million in dedicated transit funding. That didn’t cause all the trouble, but it certainly made it worse.”

Ms. Savino said that had she been aware that the MTA money was part of the equation, she wouldn’t have voted in favor of the package. When asked how she would respond to those who say that it’s her job to know what’s in the legislation she votes for, Ms. Savino said, “It’s hard to argue with that. You have to sit and read every bill.”

Soak that in for a minute. Diane Savino, a six-year veteran of the State Senate, blindly voted for an appropriations bill that took $143 million away from transit simply because her party leadership told her to. She made no effort to investigate the money that would be shuffled around, and only after the fact, when the impact of her vote has become clear, does she sound at all remorseful.

At least Savino is willing to admit she’s wrong. Other representatives in Albany think that starving the MTA makes for sound financial policies. “Let’s not forget how much money they’ve wasted over the years,” Assemblyman Matt Titone said. “They’re standing there with folded hands because they don’t want to open their books.” The books are mostly open.

Assemblyman Mike Cusick went one step further than Titone and echoed the “two sets of books” line that grew stale when a judge found it had no merit in 2003. At least Cusick seemed to know for what he was voting. “It was a decision we had to make last year in order to get a balanced budget,” he said. “The argument can also be made that the MTA in past years ran that agency in a poor way. They had two sets of books. They spent money in wasteful ways. That argument could go back and forth.”

A few other Senators seemed to have a clue, and because New York State transit politics can make for strange bedfellows, those who knew what they were doing were a handful of state Republicans. “The last place that we should have looked to cut was OMRDD,” Senator Andrew Lanza said. “The second-to-last place was that MTA money. Among the first places on the chopping block was Staten Island.”

The reaction to these comments has been swift. The Staten Island Advance’s editorial board openly mocked those representatives who claimed either that they did not know what they were doing or thought the MTA deserved the raise. Cap’n Transit, in a piece in which he advises Republicans on a pro-transit election platform that the state GOP probably wouldn’t embrace, is appalled as well.

I don’t see this behavior changing though. In the memo attached to the station agent layoff prevention bill, the Assembly claims that there are no “fiscal implications” to the bill. Apparently, money to retain station agents will just fall from the sky and land in the MTA’s savings account. As long as Albany continues to hide its collective head in the sand and as long as Senators treat the New York City’s subway system as its own personal punching bag, we will be stuck with service cuts and fare hikes. The narrative — and the representation — in Albany has to change before we can move forward with the transit the city needs and deserves.

Meet Jose Peralta. If his name sounds familiar, it’s because one of the newest State Senators made headlines when he won the special election of fill Hiram Monserrate’s seat earlier this year. He represents the 13th District which consists of East Elmhurst, Jackson Heights and Corona, three neighborhoods very dependent upon public transportation, but he now joins a growing list of elected officials who won’t fess up to the truth about transit.

Peralta has attracted my ire with an open letter to Jay Walder that the Queens Village Times printed late last week. Peralta attempts to blame the MTA for Albany’s failures and does so in spectacular fashion. Let’s break it down.

I am writing to express my concerns with the MTA’s latest plan to balance its budget on the backs of my constituents. I am not surprised the MTA is facing another crisis…

Peralta starts out on a typically populist note. Someone must teach politicians to blame the MTA for balancing the budget on the back of constituents as part of an Albany orientation package. After all, the authority isn’t about to balance its budget on the backs of State Senators or Assembly representatives. But Peralta ends on an optimistic note here: He isn’t surprised that the MTA is facing another crisis. Could it be that he’s going to admit that Albany stole money from the beleaguered authority?

— given the history of fiscal incompetency, fare hikes and services cuts this agency has imposed on riders. Rather than addressing the real problem, which is the MTA’s long history of mismanagement and overspending, you are once again expecting the public to pay the price for your mistakes.

Nope. Of course not. Ignoring history and the fact that fare hikes come about to either keep up with inflation or keep the subways running, Peralta pinpoints “fiscal incompetency,” a great catch-all that doesn’t catch anything. I wonder why Peralta doesn’t talk about the long history of Albany’s inability to fund transit or create a lockbox for revenues that are supposed to be dedicated to the MTA so that the legislature can’t later remove those to the general fund.

Common sense dictates you cannot cut an entire subway line or slash express service like the latest No. 7 train cut proposal and not expect these measures to negatively affect New Yorkers. You do not cut services to a borough like Queens, where the population is growing.

Of course, Peralta ignores the fact that even though two subway lines were cut, rush hour train service in Queens has remained the same with the Q taking over for the W and the M covering the V’s stops. The MTA doesn’t want to cut services to growing areas of the city, but when facing an $800 million budget gap, what choices does it have? Peralta, though, really gets rolling with the next paragraph.

The MTA is once again facing an astounding budget deficit. The MTA deficit will continue to grow unless the systemic problems that have plagued this agency, including mismanagement, overspending and duplication of services, are finally addressed. And while the state Senate is working to restore public transportation cuts, the MTA has chosen to distort this fact in an effort to conceal its own budgetary failures. This is deceptive and counterproductive in seeking a solution to the growing deficit.

Here, Peralta ignores how Walder himself has engaged in an effort to make every dollar count and to trim the fat. He discounts the millions in internal savings the authority has already identified and the ways in which the new MTA management is streamlining operations while eliminating overspending and duplications of services (such as media relations and communications staffs). Meanwhile, Peralta who, in December while still in the Assembly, voted for the bill that took $143 million in dedicated MTA revenue away from the authority, claims the MTA is using this to “distort the fact” that it has budget problems. In reality, that misappropriation is one of the main drivers behind the need to implement service cuts and the budget deficit. It isn’t deceptive or counterproductive; it’s just honesty.

I don’t expect anything less or anything more from Peralta. He openly extols his opposition to congestion pricing and has shown no knowledge of transit issues. Despite his attempts at phrasing his critique of the MTA as some sort of constituent fight against the Big Bad Wolf, he’s not doing those he purports to represent any favors. Welcome to the club, Senator Peralta.