Second Ave. Sagas

Category: MTA Politics

  • On Student MetroCards, the Assembly Dems fail

    Updated 5:05 p.m.: When it comes to New York State’s legislative bodies, the Assembly generally has a better reputation than the inept Senate. Sheldon Silver has his caucus largely under control, and the Assembly can, with a few major exceptions, pass the legislation it needs to pass. Yet, when individual members of the Assembly start to speak out, boy, does the Assembly start to look bad.

    Today’s Stupid MTA Statement of the Day comes to us from Richard Brodsky, Jeffrey Dinowitz and Linda Rosenthal. Brodsky, head of the committee that oversees the state’s public authorities, has sent a letter to the MTA Board criticizing the authority for its “decision to put students and families out as a pawn in the struggle to increase City and State funding.” He continued: “Simply stated, we ask that you immediately withdraw the threat to student fares.”

    The Gotham Gazette has seen the letter and provides an excerpt sure to boil your blood:

    “While the MTA asserts it needs $214 million in additional state and city aid to preserve the program, the actual cost of free and discounted student fares is close to zero. We reject the MTA’s assertion that the program must be valued at the ostensible lost revenue, and point out that state and city funding for the program actually exceeds the cost of providing the service.”

    It is irresponsible economics — and flat-out wrong — for Brodsky to say the cost of free fares is “close to zero.” As I explained when City Comptroller John Liu brought up this same spurious argument, free doesn’t mean no cost. The MTA has to staff more trains and clean up more stations. They have to pay the costs associated with 133.4 million people a year entering the system for free, and that is not something that carries a price tag “close to zero.”

    Meanwhile, Dinowitz and Rosenthal leaped into the fray with statements that are simply inexplicable in their absurdity. Dinowitz proclaimed the MetroCard Cuts to be “disgusting and immoral,” and Rosenthal called the move “shameful.” That’s right; members one of the state bodies responsible for approving a budget that striped state funding of student transit have the audacity to slam the MTA for its unwillingness to pay nearly $200 million of money that it doesn’t have for free student travel. When I last I checked, the MTA was a transportation authority and not a school bus provider.

    The people who are truly “disgusting and immoral” and also “shameful” are these very same legislatures in Albany who control the purse strings. These are the people who have shot down congestion pricing and East River Bridge tolls, the people who don’t fight for dollars for the MTA and just slam the MTA when its economics go sour. These are the people we vote to represent us and who fail at that task in so many ways.

    No politician has yet to explain why the MTA should foot the bill for student transit. The politics of asking a transit agency to cover for the Department of Education, the city and the state do not make sense. As Aaron Donovan, an agency spokesperson said in December, “Nowhere else in the United States is the public transportation system responsible for the costs of transporting students to school. In other municipalities throughout the country the local government will provide that transportation free of charge, and in most cases, provide a fleet of yellow buses.”

    Yet when faced with the political and economic reality of student travel, the state Assembly representatives are more than willing to eschew any sense of responsibility toward the city’s students. It’s far easier and politically palatable to scapegoat the MTA than to accept the blame for failed economic and education policy initiatives.

    This morning, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio flyered some major subways stops in an effort to convince New Yorkers to call upon Albany to fund student transit. He, at least, has the right idea in mind, but as Brodsky, Dinowitz and Rosenthal have highlighted today, those efforts will come to naught. Albany has simply become a wall standing in the way of New York City’s transit present and future.

  • Times: Albany must find a ‘lasting solution’

    Calling New York a failed state in its current iteration isn’t too much of a stretch. We have a governor with no public support, and a State Senate that can’t stop its in-fighting long enough to pass any sort of legislation. When they do get their collective acts together for a long enough period of time to get something done, the results fall far short of what is promised as is the case with last May’s MTA funding package.

    Over the weekend — unfortunately on a Saturday when fewer people are around to read it — The New York Times took Albany to task for its MTA failures. In a scathing editorial, the Gray Lady called upon Albany to find a better solution for the MTA. With a budget shortfall of nearly $800 million, the MTA is on borrowed time, and The Times succinctly outlines the sources of the shortfall. Tax revenues are down; the payroll tax brought in $200 million less than expected; fare revenue is down by $100 million; Albany cut $143 million; the upcoming TWU raises will cost the agency $100 million. It is a perfect storm of bad circumstances.

    The Times though is concerned with the machinations in Albany right now. Writes the paper:

    Now Governor Paterson is threatening to make things worse. In a clear pander to suburban voters in this year’s governor’s race, he is calling for cutting the payroll tax in seven suburban counties around the city while increasing the payroll tax in the city’s five boroughs.

    A Legislature that is heavy on representatives from New York City is unlikely to go along — at least on raising the city’s taxes. The danger is that legislators, also facing voters this year, will decide to cut suburban payroll taxes without making up the loss to the transportation authority.

    Some advocates are suggesting the agency shift some of its federal stimulus money — supposed to be reserved for maintenance, subway construction and upgrades — to use for operations. Transportation experts warn that if that happens, the system would deteriorate. Remember the ratty old subways of 30 years ago?

    Albany must come up with a lasting solution for the M.T.A. That means leaving the payroll tax alone and finding new revenue sources — starting with tolls on Manhattan’s free bridges that could raise an estimated $600 million a year. It may mean raising fares, although that should be a last resort. It will mean supporting the new Metropolitan Transportation Authority chairman, Jay Walder, including in his plans to lay off workers as he streamlines the system.

    What it should not mean is doing away with free passes for needy students. Both the state and city will have to contribute more to help pay $214 million a year to help keep these students in school.

    The transit system that feeds the New York City area is crucial to the welfare and commercial vitality of the entire state. Governor Paterson and the Legislature have a responsibility to make sure it has the money it needs to keep working.

    In a nutshell, this editorial tracks closely with everything I’ve been writing over the last few months. Albany must find a better solution. It’s time to renew the push for East River Bridge Tolls. It’s time for a sensible solution for transit in a city more heavily dependent on its subways and buses than any other in the nation.

  • Pols decry payroll tax changes as advocates push for money

    As the snow blankets New York, the subway system is holding up for now. As we know, the same cannot be said of the MTA’s finances, and as Gov. Paterson’s new payroll tax plan percolates through the political bodies of the area, New York City reps are up in arms. Today’s anti-Paterson rant comes to us from City Council Speaker Chrstine Quinn. Calling the new plan “outrageous” and “twisted,” Quinn slammed business for not complying and the governor for foisting more taxes on the backs of New York City business.

    “Why do we have to pay for absolutely everything in the state of New York? It’s outrageous! It’s outrageous! I mean, we’re not a piggy bank! I mean, we’re not an ATM machine for the state. We’re willing to pay our fair share, and we do in greater amounts than our numerical, you know, whatever. But this is just above and beyond,” she said. “And it’s really – while we’re at the same moment talking about eliminating MetroCards, cutting back on disabled Access-A-Rides, cutting back on bus lines and subway lines – at the same time, we’re going to tell New York City workers who are getting less they’re going to pay more. And they’re going to pay more than other counties. It’s just twisted.”

    Meanwhile, as Mt. Quinn erupted, the Empire State Transportation Alliance went north to Albany to lobby for better transit funding. Alliance members asked the state to restore $143 million in appropriations cuts to the MTA, to approve the next five-year capital plan and to fully fund the student MetroCard program. These funds, they say, can be found via “congestion management tacits” including tolls or congestion fees. “We are not asking the state for a bailout or handout,” Veronica Vanterpool, associate director of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, said. “We are asking state legislators to restore transit funds that were taken and to keep last year’s promise for a financially solvent and sustainable funding plan.” Sounds good to me.

  • Bloomberg, others blast Paterson’s payroll tax plan

    Late yesterday afternoon, David Paterson unveiled his plan to help cover the MTA’s deficit while assuaging suburban concerns over the payroll tax by shifting more of the tax burden to city-based businesses. Those doing business in the five boroughs would see the tax increase by 60 percent while those outside the city would see it decrease by 50 percent. These tax adjustments will supposedly restore the payroll tax revenue to the amount originally projected last May and deliver another $230 million to the MTA this year.

    Last night, I called this move a political one designed to earn the beleaguered Paterson some points outside of the City, but many of my readers believe it to be a more equitable distribution of the tax burden based upon those who benefit from transit. The reality is that city businesses — the major economic drivers of the entire metropolitan area — are not going to look too kindly upon higher tax rates during a bad economy. Already, the Mayor and other business officials are slamming the plan.

    The Mayor last night put out a scathing statement that highlighted the now-dead effort to bring congestion pricing revenue to the MTA. He said:

    “First the Governor proposed a state budget that slashes support for New York City but not the suburbs, and now he proposes to wallop city businesses with more taxes while lightening the load for businesses in the suburbs. The idea that the State can spare the suburbs while sacking the City is terrible economics, grossly unfair, and contrary to every principle of good regional development. We in New York City saw the MTA’s problems coming and came up with a plan that would have created a steady stream of revenue for capital programs. Now the Governor proposes to shift an extra half billion dollar burden onto New York City taxpayers, who are the economic heart of our region. I will work night and day with our City’s delegation in Albany to stop this wrongheaded proposal from moving forward.”

    Business leaders echoed the Mayor’s call but also took the opportunity to question the MTA’s business practices. “A far-reaching and dependable regional transit system is among New York State’s greatest assets,” Kathryn Wylde, head of the Partnership for New York City, said. “[We] remain open to discussing new ways to improve the MTA’s finances, so long as the approach is equitable and balanced. Additional funding, however, cannot be justified unless the MTA gets better control of spending and improves its contracting and procurement processes.”

    Streetsblog saves its indictment for the Gang of Four who refused to support Richard Ravitch’s call for East River bridge tolls or congestion pricing. Wrote Ben Fried this morning:

    So think of the New York City payroll tax hike, if it comes to pass, as a testament to the obstinacy of Carl Kruger, Pedro Espada, Ruben Diaz, Sr., and the disgraced Hiram Monserrate — as well as their GOP counterparts like Marty Golden and Andrew Lanza who sat idly by and did nothing to help the Ravitch plan last year.

    Nine months after these NYC-based State Senators killed bridge tolls and nearly two years after members of the city’s Assembly delegation stopped congestion pricing in its tracks, we now face the distinct possibility that NYC businesses will end up shouldering more than three times the payroll tax rate as suburban businesses. Think back to all the city politicians you’ve heard float make-believe proposals about reinstating the commuter tax or making only non-NYC motorists pay bridge tolls. This new tax on New York City — on their constituents — is their handiwork too.

    And so here we are, in another MTA political mess, this one inspired by our accidental governor. The state has a few options at its disposal: It could raise the payroll tax across the board to fund transit; it could push through congestion pricing or East River bridge tolls; or it could further push the pain onto the backs of New York City workers and residents who already pay more than their fair share to subsidize suburban commuter rails. Paterson has chosen to put forward the last and worst option. Can it get past the State Assembly and Senate? Will New Yorkers pay more or will the MTA continue to suffer?

  • Paterson playing electoral politics with the MTA

    Here’s a rather amusing story on the state of MTA politics in New York: Gov. David Paterson, facing the potential of a tough primary challenge from current state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, is slamming Cuomo for failing to lead on issues relating to the MTA. Cuomo hasn’t declared his candidacy for governor because, according to Paterson, he can’t answer the tough questions such as what to do with the MTA. “Why do you think he’s staying out?” Paterson said. “What does Andrew Cuomo think about the Wall Street bonuses, the last I checked he was for eliminating them. What does Andrew Cuomo think about the budget plans? What does Andrew Cuomo think about the way to pay for the MTA? He doesn’t have an opinion.”

    There’s no small amount of irony in Paterson’s statement. He’s the current governor, and he doesn’t have any viable solutions for the MTA’s budgetary problems either. The promised payroll tax has been a disaster, and Paterson doesn’t have the political will, capital or power to force a congestion pricing-based funding plan. Paterson’s plan for the MTA has been to cut appropriations, cut state contributions for Student MetroCards, reject the agency’s five-year capital plan and run for the hills. That’s not leadership either, and until Paterson figures out how he plans to do his job and help the MTA through its current funding crisis, he probably shouldn’t slam others not yet in the same position of authority and responsibility.

  • Report: Vacca chosen to head Council transportation committee

    The New York Observer’s Azi Paybarah is reporting that James Vacca will be the new head of the City Council’s Transportation Committee. For transit advocates hoping for a strong transportation committee, Vacca’s appointment is a disappointment. As I wrote earlier this week, Vacca is a car-friendly representative who has shown no love for transit. After eight years of John Liu’s know-nothing blustering, it looks for now as though we’re getting more of the same, and instead of a transit ally in the council heading this committee, those fighting for transit in the city are left with the prospects of another impotent Transportation Committee.

    Update 4:02 p.m.: After reflecting on the above paragraph for a few minutes, I realize it is a harsh assessment of a council member who was largely out of the spotlight during his first term in the Council. I’m willing to give Vacca a chance to proof his transit allegiance, but early comments on the congestion pricing debate leave me a little wary. Hopefully, Vacca will be a surprise, but his early council history suggests otherwise.

  • Brodsky promises funding for student fares

    The politicking surrounding the threatened cuts to the MTA’s student MetroCard program were in full swing yesterday as MTA CEO and Chairman Jay Walder made an appearance before Richard Brodsky’s Assembly Committee on Corporations, Authorities and Commissions. While Walder spoke about his aversion toward using stimulus funds to cover the MTA’s operating gap, Brodsky reassured the MTA head that he and the Assembly would work hard to find money for student rides.

    “There is no reason in God’s Earth to make young kids pay the price of the MTA’s fiscal crisis,” Brodsky said. “I think parents should be hopeful if not confident that we’re going to solve this before next September.”

    Of course, promises from Brodsky may not be enough. The MTA is threatening to end the student MetroCard program not because of the recent reduction in state subsidies from $45 million annually to just $6 million but because neither the state or city have upped their contributions to the program. At one point, as I’ve explained in the past, the city, state and MTA split the funding for student rides evenly with each body covering approximately a third of the costs. As school enrollment levels and the cost of free rides have increased, the state and city have never upped their contributions, and the MTA has been saddled with covering nearly $170 million of student rides per year.

    “We’re going to deal with that in a timely way,” Brodsky said of the MTA’s threats to end free rides for the city’s students, “and we’re very confident there’s going to be a good outcome.” Brodsky, reports amNew York, said that he will be “pushing” to restore the state’s contributions to the student program.

    Brodsky’s words, if we parse them, seem to indicate that, on the one hand, he will find a way to fund student travel but, on the other, he will “push” simply to restore the state’s $45 million grant, but the MTA needs more. The authority needs both New York City — as Christine Quinn noted earlier this week — and New York State to up its student subsidies significantly in order to safe the program.

    The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is in the business of running a transit system. It isn’t in the business of providing free transportation for students because the city and state are too broke to do so and found a good scapegoat/transit out in the MTA’s largess. As Walder goes to Albany to lobby for money, he should make this reality quite clear to those who are listening.

    Meanwhile, Brodsky noted that the state would not provide another funding plan — or in his words, a bailout — for the MTA. Every agency, he said, has to make “painful” cuts as funding is tight. Left unsaid is the quick fix for the city and the MTA. East River Bridge Tolls would solve many of the MTA’s current fiscal woes and would simply be good for New York City. Walder won’t lobby for those because to do so now would be political folly, but free bridges remain a reminder to the way state and city representatives view the MTA and our subways as second-rate transportation options when they are truly the economic drivers of the region.

  • Quinn’s Council proposal: Almost getting it right

    After spending the early part of this week highlighting politicians who do not seem to care enough about transit to educate themselves, we find ourselves faced with a high-ranking New York official who nearly gets it. Christine Quinn, speaker of the City Council, has engaged in a very public campaign to support the student MetroCard program and to speak out against the MTA’s proposed service cuts. She’s nearly on the right track with some of her words, but I am wary of fully supporting her plan.

    At a rally on Tuesday to protest cuts to the student MetroCard program, Quinn spoke about throwing Council support behind the student rides. More importantly, she stressed how the City Council would consider more funding for student transportation during the spring budgeting sessions and how she would prioritize this item. “I recognize there is a city responsibility in this funding, and we are willing to have that conversation and see what can be done,” Quinn said.

    For this, I applaud Speaker Quinn. She is doing what a politician should be doing. She is promising to explore how the city can fulfill its funding obligations to the both the MTA and the New York’s students, many of whom rely upon free transit to get to and from school. She recognizes that these cuts aren’t something the MTA would choose to do but that years of financial neglect from the city and state have backed the MTA into a corner.

    But beyond this proposal, Quinn’s actions get a little murky. In addition to her vow to find more money for student rides, she calls upon the MTA to take four actions immediately to stave off the cuts. Those are, according to her action center, as follows:

    • Reallocating 10 percent of direct stimulus aid to MTA operating expenses ($91.5 million);
    • Using budgeted PAYGO capital funds for operating ($50 million); and
    • Reallocating 10 percent of additional stimulus transit aid to State to operating ($30 million).
    • Do not implement any actions without a full set of public hearings.

    First, let’s dispose of the last item. Numerous politicians have tried to criticize the MTA for passing a budget a week after it was unveiled and with no input for the public. This ignores the reality that the MTA Board was, by law, required to pass a balanced budget before the end of the 2009 calendar year and had just three weeks from the time the budget crisis was announced to do so. The agency has pledged to hold hearings this year and will reevaluate the proposed cuts before they need to be implemented in June.

    The other three are, in effect, the Gene Russianoff Plan, and I’ve already voiced my reticence over using capital funds for operating deficits. In a nutshell, my fears concern the precedent such a financial move would set and the MTA’s dire need to continue investing in system maintenance and expansion even in the face of a short-term operating deficit.

    If the agency is to reshuffle its budgets to cover its operating gap with capital funds, such a move will become the lazy legislature’s fallback every time a hole opens up in the MTA budget. Albany will begin reducing capital expenditures in order to meet operating budget projections, and the agency’s capital budget will empty faster than a raided piggy bank. If this is the last-gasp proposal to stave service cuts, I would support it, but until every other available long-term funding option has been exhausted, we cannot fund the MTA through a short-term reshuffling of its two separate balance sheet.

    Right now, Quinn is an ally of transit, and she should remain so. I won’t sign her petition yet, but I won’t begrudge those who do. Until we know that other options — bridge tolls and congestion pricing — simply will not work, we cannot rob from the future for a short-term fix today. It won’t solve the systemic problems with the way the MTA is funded and will only exacerbate these shortcomings in the future.

  • To avoid service cuts, Council members urge reallocation

    In an effort to help the MTA stave off crippling service cuts while earning some political brownie points, two New York City Council members urged the MTA to reject the service cuts proposals. Council Member James Vacca (D-Bronx) and Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn joined some transit advocates in speaking out against the cuts. The two proposed an alternate solution to the MTA’s funding gap, but it is nothing more than a temporary fix.

    According to the press release issued by the council members, the MTA would use $90 million in “unspent federal stimulus aid” that is supposed to go to capital projects to cover the budget gap while another $50 million would be moved from the capital budget to the operating ledger. Although the MTA may still have to cut salaries, the Student MetroCard program and some Access-A-Ride services, this $140 million accounting trick would avert the death of the W and Z trains as well as the cuts to citywide bus service and midday subway frequency.

    Quinn’s press release has some information backwards: It says the MTA Board is voting a week before they issue the cuts when in fact it’s voting less than a week after releasing them. The council members though defending their suggestion as a one-time solution.

    “If bus and subway services are cut the way the MTA is proposing, we will be creating mass transit deserts throughout New York City, stranding hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers,” Vacca said. “Once again, we’ll have citizens paying more and getting less. The city, state, and MTA have got to come together and reexamine the agency’s budget so that these cuts never become a reality.”

    The Speaker herself bemoaned the lack of public hearings on the cuts. “We normally would not favor using capital funding towards operating expenses,” she said. “However under these circumstances, this is the only appropriate action to take. The MTA’s decision not to hold a single public hearing for straphangers to weigh in on proposed service cuts or the elimination of student metro cards is a slap in the face to millions of hardworking families. Before these drastic changes are made, the MTA must pledge to give the public a chance to voice their concerns before enacting these extreme changes.”

    Quinn and Vacca should understand the MTA is legally obligated to pass a balanced budget before the end of the year. Without permission from Albany, there is simply no time to hold public hearings and, based on the hearings earlier this year, no real point to them. People aren’t going to like the hikes whether or not the MTA holds some hearings.

    In the end, though, it’s not about hearings; it’s about an unsatisfactory solution. For now, moving money from one budget to the other would avoid the service cuts, but it is nothing more than a short-term fix. The MTA has suffered through decades of short-term fixes, and the last thing the agency could do is move money from its capital budget to its operating expenses. The capital budgets ensure that this system doesn’t fall apart and, in fact, continues to grow. The Council should come up with more permanent ways to fund the MTA. The city is depending upon it.

  • The politics of threatening service cuts

    As news got around of the MTA’s new plan to cut services yesterday, New Yorkers acted with predictable outrage. Many were sympathetic to the plight of the MTA while others wondered how the authority could target two vulnerable groups — students and the disabled — with the bulk of their cuts.

    The truth is that yesterday’s announcement was the first in an intricate six-month political game the MTA will now play with the city and state. On Monday, the MTA Board’s Finance Committee approved these service cuts with an eye toward closing a $383-million budget gap. Tomorrow, the full MTA Board, under a legal mandate to pass a balanced budget before the end of the 2009 calendar year, will listen to MTA CFO Gary Dellaverson’s proposal and will debate it. The mayor’s appointees to the MTA Board probably won’t approve it, but in the end, the Board will pass this plan.

    From there, everything slows down. The bulk of the cuts — those involving subway and bus service — will not be implemented until mid year. Right now, June 2010 is the target date for the elimination of the W and Z as well as the cut backs to buses. After that, the student Metrocard program will be reduced from a free ride to a half-price scheme in September with a full elimination of the subsidies the following year.

    Those representing the MTA are well aware that these cuts are far from certain. “If this budget were to get passed, it’s nothing but a plan,” Jeffrey A. Kay, one of Bloomberg’s MTA Board appointees, said to The Times. “There are many, many other steps and changes that will be made before things get implemented.”

    Despite Kay’s seemingly optimistic approach, Jay Walder, MTA CEO and Chairman, was more pessimistic. Outside of a politically unpalatable fare hike, the cuts are all the MTA can do to fulfill its legal budgetary obligations. “I don’t want to leave you with the sense that this isn’t very real,” he said. “There are few other ways to look at balancing a budget hole of the magnitude that it is right now.”

    Still, there is an element of politics here, and Michael Grynbaum of The Times explored that today:

    There appeared to be a bit of political brinkmanship at play. Leaders at the transportation authority were quick to point out that the [Student MetroCard] program used to be fully financed by the city and state, which have reduced or limited their contributions in recent years. An authority spokesman, Jeremy Soffin, said that it was uncommon for transit systems to shoulder the costs of student travel.

    Charles Brecher, research director at the Citizens Budget Commission, a nonprofit fiscal monitor, said that while cutting student discounts underscored the pressures facing the authority, it could also be used as an effective negotiating tool.

    “It helps create the notion that other parties share some of the responsibility,” he said. “It’s not just a general holding out of the cup. It says, ‘If you, the city, would increase your share, we wouldn’t have to do this.’”

    I disagree with Brecher here in one sense. It isn’t about creating the notion of shared responsibility; rather, it is about educating the public about the city’s and state’s neglect of their responsibilities toward the MTA. It is politics because the politicians are the one who can deliver. The politicians are the one who told the MTA not to institute drastic fare hikes and service cuts last year because Albany would deliver an appropriate bailout package, and the politicians are the ones who refuse to implement an East River Bridge tolling plan or congestion pricing scheme that would equitably fund transit.

    In the end, these cuts are simply on the table. It will be six months until they go into effect, and that gives New Yorkers six months to urge their representatives to find solutions for the MTA’s funding problems — problems which Albany created. Six months seems to be a good amount of time, but it’s not. If ever there were a time to pressure New York’s politicians, it is now. The city’s transit network depends on it.