MESSAGE
| DATE | 2024-11-20 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
|
| SUBJECT | Subject: [Hangout - NYLXS] MTA Money Grab - Not to Mention Power and Mass
|
So far we get Trillions of Dollars spent on Electron Advertising, USB
plugs on buses, and fare evasion and intolerable riding conditions.
More money and power for the MTA solves ZERO,
They can't even make the Q train go and their major accomplishment is
adding useless elevators at every station to satisfy a special interest.
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gothamist.com
A mountain of cash is coming to the MTA. (A fare hike is coming to riders.)
By Clayton GusePublished Nov 15, 2024ShareFacebookTwitterRedditEmail
4–5 minutes
This column originally appeared in On The Way, a weekly newsletter
covering everything you need to know about NYC-area transportation.
Sign up to get the full version, which includes answers to reader
questions, trivia, service changes and more, in your inbox every Thursday.
With the election in the rearview mirror, Gov. Kathy Hochul now seeks to
deliver wheelbarrows of taxpayer cash to the MTA.
Hochul announced the end of her congestion pricing “pause” on Thursday.
The MTA plans to begin collecting Manhattan’s first ever congestion toll
from drivers in early January. The revenue will be used to cover $15
billion in transit repairs. Hochul also announced she “supports" the
MTA’s pitch for more than $30 billion in new revenue to fix the agency’s
rotten transit infrastructure. That money will have to come from new or
increased taxes.
And that’s not even the whole pile. The MTA also has a fare hike
scheduled for 2025 — and hearings on the increase could commence as
early as next month.
That’s new fees for drivers, costlier bus and subway rides, and –
pending legislative approval – potential new taxes on businesses and
consumers. It all comes in the wake of a “throw the bums out” election
where Democrats lost the House, Senate and the White House, with the
cost of living being a big reason for Republicans’ clean sweep.
As Republicans bask in their victory, they’re signaling that they’re
ready for a fight. A group of New York Republican congressmembers sent
President-elect Donald Trump a letter on Tuesday, calling for him to nix
Hochul’s congestion pricing plan once he takes office on Jan. 20.
So how can the MTA sell congestion pricing tolls, new taxes and a fare hike?
“I think you have to pitch it as a package for the MTA, and set out the
reasons and the dire shape of transportation in the city,” said longtime
New York public relations guru George Arzt. “If we want a modern,
efficient transportation system, for now and for the future this is what
we have to do.”
MTA officials say the fares are a routine part of the agency’s financial
planning. Since the financial pits of 2009, the agency has set a
standard for hiking the transit fare every two years by roughly 4%. It’s
a move designed to avert the type of agita seen over the summer at NJ
Transit, where officials raised fares by a jaw-dropping 15% after a
nine-year freeze.
The last hike landed in August 2023, which bumped the subway and bus
fare from $2.75 to $2.90. Next year’s could bring it up to an even $3.
Hochul nixed a fare hike shortly after taking office in 2021, saying the
move would lure more riders back during the pandemic.
She could have avoided this perfect political storm of MTA subsidies had
she not paused congestion pricing in June. And she could have sought new
taxes for the MTA’s construction plan through the state budget this past
April.
But Arzt argued the governor had no choice: New fees or taxes are
political poison in an election year.
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in a future newsletter!
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newsletter subscribers. Sign up for free here.
Question from Geo in Manhattan
Why should drivers who don't use the MTA be forced to pay for it?
Current expensive bridge and tunnel tolls ARE congestion pricing.
Answer
Many New Yorkers might forget that the MTA’s whole purpose is to use
toll money from drivers to maintain the city’s mass transit systems. The
agency was formed in 1968 with the goal of funneling money from the
Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority to the subways and Long Island
Rail Road — which were both severely underfunded at the time. Over the
following 50 years, labor and construction costs boomed in the city —
and decades of deferred maintenance once again left the subways in
disrepair (remember 2017’s summer of hell?) Part of congestion pricing’s
goal is to pay for $15 billion in mass transit repairs rather than
collecting that money through taxes. The MTA’s analysis also says it
will reduce Manhattan's notorious gridlock, which may speed up trips for
motorists who can afford to pay the congestion toll.
--
So many immigrant groups have swept through our town
that Brooklyn, like Atlantis, reaches mythological
proportions in the mind of the world - RI Safir 1998
http://www.mrbrklyn.com
DRM is THEFT - We are the STAKEHOLDERS - RI Safir 2002
http://www.nylxs.com - Leadership Development in Free Software
http://www.brooklyn-living.com
Being so tracked is for FARM ANIMALS and extermination camps,
but incompatible with living as a free human being. -RI Safir 2013
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