PREPARING FOR THE WORST

MTA Executive Director Elliot Sander uses charts and graphs to explain the MTA's budget issues at a press roundtable. Metropolitan Transportation Authority Executive Director Elliot Sander expounded on the transit agency's efforts at fiscal austerity at a roundtable with community and minority newspapers on Dec. 18 at MTA Headquarters in midtown Manhattan.

Joining Sander and the MTA's Lois Tendler in the fifth-floor meeting room of 347 Madison Ave. were representatives of newspapers serving Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens as well as a Chinese-language publication.

The director began with a slideshow presentation detailing the strides the MTA has taken since the 1970s, when the system was thought to be largely in a state of disrepair.

One year, he noted, the subway system suffered over 20 train derailments. Many of the trains that did stay on track would get stuck in tunnels with no air conditioning.

"I can remember vividly ... often getting stuck in the subway, lights going out, no air conditioning—it was horrific," Sander said.

Today, he noted, the system provides 75 percent of all trips into Manhattan, serving 8.5 million peo- ple per day—2.5 million on buses— and is doing so while "operating the best it ever has."

Even though the bus fleet is the oldest it's been in 13 years and many parts of the subway system are over 100 years old, the system is more reliable from an operational standpoint, he stated. Buses have the largest distance between bus failures in the agency's history.

"We are the major mobility provider for New York," he said.

The "major, major problem that we have" from an operational perspective, he told the roundtable, is overcrowding; over the past 10 years, ridership has "exploded" by 50 percent.

Priorities

The MTA head identified seven priorities that the agency was focusing on: workforce development, encompassing not just training but worker happiness following the 2005 strike; institutional transformation, including tighter interagency integration; projects and planning (like the Second Avenue Subway and East Side Access projects); environmental sustainability; customer service (including better use of the MTA's website, www.mta.info); safety and security; and finances.

The results have been "more progress than I expected us to," said Sander. But all these initiatives come at a cost.

What does a ride really cost?

Sander's next set of slides attempted to answer that question.

New Yorkers pay, on average, $1.34 per ride. However, it costs the MTA $2.13 to move a straphanger through the system. The rest are paid with subsidies, which, Sander noted, support every transit system in the world with the exception of Hong Kong.

"If our mission was not to provide service seven days a week, 24 hours; if, let's say, we just operated in Manhattan during rush hour, we'd turn a profit, or pretty close to that, " he said. "But the reality is that the development of the New York region in terms of where people live, what jobs they take, is built on affordable public transportation."

The MTA system gets its revenues from fares, bridge and tunnel tolls, state business taxes and subsidies.

The big problem

Sander then dived into the meat of the issue: the reasons why the MTA is facing a budget deficit forcing them to make what he would later term "apocalyptic" cuts to the system.

On the surface, the problem seems simple: revenues from real estate and business taxes have plummeted due to the faltering global economy, while the cost of fuel and pensions have risen, he said.

"We have kept expenses roughly kept at the rate of inflation," he pointed out, adding that 70 percent of the MTA's expenses have come from personnel.

Using a chart to explain, Sander said that the state methodically lowered their share of the MTA's funding from 26 percent before 1991 to nine percent between 1992 and 1999, to only two percent in the 2000-2004 capital plan, forcing the agency to borrow money to pay for its operating budget.

While the 2005-09 plan brought state funding back up to 17 percent, the damage was done; the debt service will cost the MTA $2 billion by 2012.

"It's like the mother of all balloon mortgages," he lamented.

Right now, Sander stated, over $1 billion of the MTA's $10.7 billion budget will be spent retiring that debt; if the agency was debt-free, the MTA would have no need to cut service.

"Albany really abandoned us," Sander said.

Even before the world economy went into a tailspin, the MTA has been working to reduce the budget by six percent over a five-year period by undergoing managerial and administrative reforms.

However, Sander refuted the idea, which he claimed was shared by most New Yorkers, that the MTA is a bloated agency.

Q&A

In response to questions, Sander stated that the East Side Access initiative to provide Long Island Rail Roard service at Grand Central Station, the Second Avenue Subway line currently under construction and the Bus Rapid Transit express bus service are all in jeopardy if the state legislature does not provide aid.

With regard to the Second Avenue Subway line, federal dollars have been used for the project (at a rate of "30 cents on the dollar") but its continued expansion will require subsidies from Albany, according to Sander.

"As much as I have a passion [for the major projects] ... at the end of the day, the core program is more important," Sander said. "If we have to make a choice, there is no choice."

"We can't go back to the '70s and '80s," he added.

He also stated that the MTA supports the Ravitch Commission's recommendations to place tolls on the East River bridges as well as the Cross Bay bridge between Howard Beach and the Rockaways, and couple that with a corporate payroll tax.

On the latter topic, Sander stated that he had spoken about the plan with Assemblywoman Audrey Pheffer.

"In an ideal world, we wouldn't have to do things like this. In an ideal world, people wouldn't have to pay for some of these services that are required," he said. "What's particularly critical is that the MTA get the money."

"We believe that in terms of New York's competitiveness with London, with Shanghai, mobility is a real key factor with regard for urban life," he would add later.

Hearings

On Monday, Dec. 22, the MTA released its schedule of public hearings to take residents' comments on the proposed changes.

In Queens, the hearing will take place on Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2009 at the Sheraton LaGuardia East Hotel's Phoenix Ballroom, located at 135- 20 39th Ave. in Flushing.

In Brooklyn, the hearing will take place on Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2009 at the Brooklyn Marriott, located at 333 Adams St. in Downtown Brooklyn.

Both hearings, as well as other hearings held in Manhattan, the Bronx, Staten Island, Garden City (Long Island), White Plains and West Nyack, N.Y. will begin at 6 p.m. Residents can register to speak until 9 p.m. Speakers will be limited to three minutes.

For a full list of hearings, visit www.mta.info/mta/09/hearing_ notice.html.

To register to speak in advance of the hearing date, to send comments in writing or for more information, contact MTA Community Affairs Director Douglas Sussman, 347 Madison Ave, NY, NY 10017, or by calling 1-212-878-7483.

According to an MTA spokesperson, the notice details a wide range of possible changes to match the 23- percent increase in revenue the MTA needs to balance its budget; the flexibility in the notice will enable the city agency to modify the plan based on input from the public and the MTA board.

Among the changes being offered for debate:

• an increase in subway and local bus fare to as much as $3, increases in express bus fares to as much as $6.25, and increasing the price of unlimited-fare MetroCards to result in a price of $105 for a 30- day card;

• eliminating the student discount fare for express buses;

• increasing Access-a-Ride fares to as much as $6 per trip;

• increasing fares to as much as $3.50 on MTA Long Island Bus lines;

• increasing prices up to 29 percent for many ticket types on the Long Island and Metro-North rail roads, including reducing Mail and Ride discounts, raising the cost of a weekend CityTicket fare and increasing the penalty for buying a ticket on the train as opposed to a vending machine by as much as $6.50;

• increasing the cost of traveling MTA bridges and tunnels to as much as $7 one-way, and eliminating the Cross Bay Bridge rebate program;

• terminating the G train to Court Square at all times, eliminating the Z train (making the J train operate local at all times), and eliminating the W line, using N and Q train service to compensate;

• eliminating all service on the Q26, Q56, Q74, Q75, Q84, QM22, QM23, B23, B25, B37, B39, B51, B75 and X32 express bus, as well as eliminating weekend and late-night service on a variety of other bus lines;

• reducing weekend service on the Port Washington LIRR branch from half-hourly to hourly.

A more detailed list can be found at www.mta.info.