Passenger Trains > NY's MTA: Pay more, or else!

The bitter fight between governor Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) and mayor Bill DeBlasio (D-NYC) has grown louder in recent days.  The MTA desperately needs more funding for its bridges, subways, and trains. The governor has offered eight billion, the mayor seems to  have offered various amounts, defined in different ways. The MTA would like 3.2 billion, the mayor has offered a small fraction of that. The mayor's office now says that a billion might be in reach, but wants assurances the state would siphon it off for other needs.  (The Tappan Zee bridge and the Hudson River Tunnels are good examples)

The NY Times reports the mayor wants more control of the MTA, the governor says that will happen when the mayor puts up hard dollars, not empty talk.  Now the Transport Workers Union is involved, demanding the mayor get off the token.. 



MTA

The TA was reassigned from City to State juisdiction back in 1967. It is very hard for even a city the size of NYC to add a multi-billion dollar capital budget item without congestion pricing and a commuter tax.

joemvcnj Wrote:
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> The TA was reassigned from City to State
> juisdiction back in 1967. It is very hard for even
> a city the size of NYC to add a multi-billion
> dollar capital budget item without congestion
> pricing and a commuter tax.

Yes, but then people would be upset.  Even proposals to put tolls on the free East River and Harlem River bridges send people to the barricades.  And you have to consider that swing district in Rockland which doomed the last commuter income tax.

Transit authority police are part of the NYC police department, unlike MTA officers who are under the state agency.

NYC has something like an $90-100 billion annual budget.

Posted from iPhone

abyler Wrote:
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> NYC has something like an $90-100 billion annual
> budget.
>
> Posted from iPhone

$78.5 for FY 2016 according to NYC OMB ... http://www.nyc.gov/html/omb/html/faq/faq.shtml .. and bigger than most state's annual budgets, conservative or progressive, but why does that matter if all parties live up to their commitments. Maybe the Mayor is remembering how the current governor of New Jersey made a share commitment to the original Hudson tunnel project only to pull NJ's share of the funding after construction had already started and diverting the money to fill his highway budget short fall and is concerned that the current gov of NY might use a page from Christie's old playbook?

slingshot2 Wrote:
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> abyler Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > NYC has something like an $90-100 billion
> annual
> > budget.
> >
> > Posted from iPhone
>
> $78.5 for FY 2016 according to NYC OMB
> ... http://www.nyc.gov/html/omb/html/faq/faq.shtm
> l .. and bigger than most state's annual budgets,
> conservative or progressive, but why does that
> matter if all parties live up to their
> commitments. Maybe the Mayor is remembering how
> the current governor of New Jersey made a share
> commitment to the original Hudson tunnel project
> only to pull NJ's share of the funding after
> construction had already started and diverting the
> money to fill his highway budget short fall and is
> concerned that the current gov of NY might use a
> page from Christie's old playbook?

Boo Hoo! And this from the Mayor of a city that made zero commitment to a project that was going to expand the city's tax base signficantly, and apparently has no intention to make any commitment to Gateway? Give me a break. New York City just wants a free ride like everuone else. Afterall in the first place it lost the transit agency to the state in exchange for getting bailed out from its own bankruptcy due to sheer political mismanagement and an unrealistic desire to hold the transit fare at an unsustainable level for far too long. Most cities in the world pay a far higher transit fare than NYC does, specially the ones that have their balance sheets in better shape. At some point the realities of what it costs to get a service must be acknowledged and paid for. Singapore and London have excellent transit systems. both pay higher fares and both have congestion tarrifs for entering the CBD. At some point NYC has to learn that there is no free lunch and pony up.

Jishnu Wrote:
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(snip)
>
> Boo Hoo! And this from the Mayor of a city that
> made zero commitment to a project that was going
> to expand the city's tax base signficantly, and
> apparently has no intention to make any commitment
> to Gateway? Give me a break. New York City just
> wants a free ride like everuone else. Afterall in
> the first place it lost the transit agency to the
> state in exchange for getting bailed out from its
> own bankruptcy due to sheer political
> mismanagement and an unrealistic desire to hold
> the transit fare at an unsustainable level for far
> too long. Most cities in the world pay a far
> higher transit fare than NYC does, specially the
> ones that have their balance sheets in better
> shape. At some point the realities of what it
> costs to get a service must be acknowledged and
> paid for. Singapore and London have excellent
> transit systems. both pay higher fares and both
> have congestion tarrifs for entering the CBD. At
> some point NYC has to learn that there is no free
> lunch and pony up.

There's actually an argument that NYC's transit fare is unfair to the poor, and to low income working families.  The argument goes like this.

Wealthier people (ie higher paid workers) buy monthly unlimited metrocards, which give them an average number of rides at $1.30 - $1.50 per actual ride.  Poor people can't afford $150 in one shot, so they have to pay $2.50 etc per ride.  Under this argument, the poor are subsidizing the slightly richer.  It creates great upset among the redistibutionists, as you'd imagine.

Be that as it may, I believe that the entire fare structure is too low unless the state and the city is willing to throw in considerably more money from other sources to sustain and maintain the system. Also the fact tht there is only a single fare zone for the entire system makes it that much harder to create a reasonable source of income to sustain the system.

Jishnu Wrote:
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> Be that as it may, I believe that the entire fare
> structure is too low unless the state and the city
> is willing to throw in considerably more money
> from other sources to sustain and maintain the
> system. Also the fact tht there is only a single
> fare zone for the entire system makes it that much
> harder to create a reasonable source of income to
> sustain the system.

No argument with any of that.  But a fair number of DeBlasio's allies believe any fare at all is hard on the poor. That's a hard nut to crack...