Straphanger advocates have teamed up with the labor union representing transit workers to urge Governor Kathy Hochul and state legislators invest more in the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in the upcoming state budget, arguing MTA funding should not just financially rescue the teetering authority but allow it to thrive for New Yorkers.
The Riders Alliance, Transport Workers Union Local 100, and progressive elected officials say that Hochul’s budget, which calls for using an increase in payroll taxes, agency spending cuts, new city subsidies, and future casino revenues to rescue the MTA from financial calamity, is the bare minimum, and with a small (in the grand scheme of things) additional investment could ensure service is not just sufficient, but stellar.
“We have a transit system today that the governor describes as world-class,” said Queens Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani, the prime sponsor of the “Fix the MTA” package, at a rally outside Grand Central Terminal on Wednesday. “You ask any New Yorker across the five boroughs, they will tell you, they are waiting more than 10 minutes for a train. They are on a bus that is going 5 miles per hour. They are at risk of being priced out of one of their most basic human rights, the right to go around their city.”
A $300 million addition to the governor’s plan would significantly bolster off-peak subway and bus service, the coalition contends. Committing just 1.5% of her $227 billion budget to mass transit would allow the MTA to make buses free and ensure subway headways never exceed 6 minutes, they say, while also avoiding a planned fare hike and “adjustments” in service.
“We are fighting for these things because we know that they are possible,” said Mamdani. “It is just a matter of political will.”
Mamdani maintained that the bolstered service for New Yorkers who ride public transit should come from taxing the wealthiest New Yorkers. If New York raised its corporate tax rate on its biggest businesses from 7.25 to 11.25%, he said, the state could generate billions of dollars in new revenue to achieve the goals of the Fix the MTA package — while still maintaining a lower top rate than New Jersey.
The politically-influential TWU is also all-in on bolstered service, worried that service cuts will lead to unsafe situations for workers at the hands of aggrieved passengers. Union president Richard Davis deemed MTA chief Janno Lieber, who has expressed support for Hochul’s plan, a “bumbling idiot” en route to “crush” subway and bus riders.
“The MTA is proposing service cuts in subways and next they will attack buses. And we have a chairman who is a bumbling idiot, that’s the best I can call him,” said Davis. “Janno Lieber, he’s attacking us, he’s crushing anything that moves, and eventually will crush service in the buses and the subways. So I want to stand here today with Riders Alliance to say we will fight against service cuts, we will not stand for service cuts, and how can we get to a 6-minute headway if they’re gonna cut service.”
Both Hochul and Lieber deny that their rescue plan involves any service cuts. The plan includes $400 million in “operating efficiencies” identified by the MTA, while in December, the agency announced Monday and Friday service would be slashed on certain lines to make room for expanded service on others.
“Governor Hochul’s Executive Budget makes transformative investments to make New York more affordable, more livable and safer,” said Hochul spokesperson Katy Zielinski. “And she looks forward to working with the legislature on a final budget that meets the needs of all New Yorkers.”
The governor’s office did not take a position on Mamdani’s tax proposals.
The MTA, meanwhile, contends that most straphangers already receive 6-minute service. “The mission to provide faster, cleaner, safer service is dramatically improving customer satisfaction and will benefit from Governor Hochul’s budget that provides relief from looming deficits,” said MTA spokesperson Kayla Shults.
Still, 20-minute waits for subways and languishing on the nation’s slowest buses remain an all-too-common experience for New York City’s straphangers. Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, who also spoke at the rally, said that the governor’s budget had lots of funky line items that could be “skimmed” to bolster mass transit. Among those were $150 million for a beefed-up MTA Police, $700 million in tax credits for the film industry — often derided as wasteful and ineffective — and $400 million in loans to prop up the flailing horse racing industry.
“Just take $50-100 million from each one of those projects, you’ll have the $300 million you need to get our subway moving faster. That’s all you have to do,” said Williams. “Please, just skim some off the top, pretend it’s the Buffalo Bills you want to fund, and find the money to fund the MTA.”
