The MTA needs billions in new funding by 2025 to avoid dire cuts to mass transit service in and around New York City, agency officials said Monday.
Before the pandemic, rider fares and driver tolls covered about 40% of the agency’s roughly $18 billion in annual operating expenses. But new ridership projections show that model is no longer sustainable.
New projections now show that the MTA faces a $2.5 billion funding shortfall come 2025, giving lawmakers precious little time to find new funding sources to prevent service cuts and layoffs that would hamper New Yorkers’ ability to move in and around the city.
“The new dedicated funding is necessary to avoid what we’re all trying to avoid,” said Metropolitan Transportation Authority Chief Financial Officer Kevin Willens. “Large fare increases, service cuts and layoffs.”
The MTA previously estimated ridership on the the agency’s subways, buses and railroads would reach 77% of prepandemic levels in 2022, bumping up to 86% in 2023. But the spread of the omicron variant over the winter halted many companies’ plans to return to in-person work, tanking those estimates.
The MTA now projects just 61% of those riders will be back on trains and buses this year — with just 69% of them returning in 2023.
Transit officials on Monday did not lay out what new funding sources they seek, but said planned fare hikes for 2023 and 2025 wouldn’t be enough to cover the shortfall.
Cell service is coming to New York City's subway tunnels.
On Monday, MTA CEO Janno Lieber told CBS2 the agency is rolling out a 10-year plan to install equipment that will let riders use cellphones in all underground tunnels.
Lieber said the $1 billion investment also includes installing Wi-Fi service at all above-ground stations.
Transit Wireless CEO Melinda White said in a statement, "Expansion of the riders' connectivity through the tunnels and across the above ground stations shows the MTA's ongoing commitment to the rider experience."
The upgrade comes as the MTA is strapped for cash. The agency is moving what it calls its "fiscal cliff" up one year sooner, since outside projections of ridership returns fell short.
The MTA is turning to the federal government for more money, saying the pandemic relief funding will now run out in 2024.
The agency says a full return to ridership may not come until 2035 or later. No doubt, officials hope advancements, like adding Wi-Fi, get more people underground sooner.
21 comments:
they'll just keep increasing the tolls
Maybe they should start enforcing the fare beating rules, because fare beating is rampant.
Installing cell service in the tunnels! Lol! Like the current MTA wi-fi, it's almost never going to work, being totally overloaded and poorly maintained from the start. But there's a lot of money going around, both over and under the table, so it's all good. What's a few billion more from the taxpaying chumps?
Unions do not allow developers to fix the stations under them. Koch replaced many tracks and Giuliani replaced many cars. A lot of other things, like signals need updating, but the worst part is the rat infested, crumbling station. I've seen pieces of rusted metal and hazmats fall on platforms full of waiting commuters, dislodged by train rumbling. Fire rules insist on a mezzanine, which guarantees low ceilings, unlike other cities with spacious high and often sunlighted ceilings. I don't remember ever seeing subway stations where the paint isn't peeling and falling in over half a century of my life here. Liberals will complain about hazmats at work but never their quaint pre-war apartment, and they won't object when workers covered in hazardous dust expose their children, because it would be undemocratic to complain. I have even seen workers carry construction supplies and debris on the subway. We have to end the hipocrisy where people only see the spec in others eyes and not the plank in their own
1776 said...
New Yorker's can you imagine the day when you are no longer Sheeple ?
Money taking agency ALWAYS crying poverty and begging for money.
When is someone going to audit the moneygrubbers at the MTA?
That’s all we need. More loudmouths yapping on the phone in the subway.
What low ridership?
Party on people!
"Women in Thong Bikinis Twerk on Slip n’ Slide, Guzzle Booze on New York City Subway"
https://t.co/shRckSILoF
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lbg2H2Pvdo
https://nypost.com/2022/07/26/wild-twerk-fueled-pool-party-breaks-out-on-nyc-train/
Watch CNN Host's Face as Janet Yellen Changes the Definition of Recession.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzbtCm203Lc&ab_channel=TheRubinReport
1776 said...
It's frustrating seeing so many people take the propaganda balls deep.
New York will never return until these nitwits running it are removed.
And that will not happen until the voters remove them.
And that wil not happen.
That twerking video was a new low - shows a city totally out of control with no adult at the helm. Only when we clean up Washington will they send support to clean up NY.
1776 was so last year! ...
It would be nice if the people who made these decisions at the MTA had to rely on the buses and trains as their only means of transport. Then they might realize that safe, fast, on time, clean service, is what people really want. Cell phone service is what you do after we have all those other things.
1776 said...
They all learn how to steal from taxpayers, term limits is the only answer.
This current administration is a stain on the United States of America.
Swagger thinks he can solve the crime problems by moving his lips in front of the camera.
WANT TO CLEAN UP NYC.
VOTE REPUBLICAN
The cellphone contract will benefit the companies that offer the service - which is put on the front burner because of some likely contact with key people within the MTA.
After the money is spent, and it will be lauded as a service improvement, and the right pockets lined, it will not be improved or maintained. Complaints will be greeted with indifference and shrugs.
Just like other 'improvements.' Think of subway announcments - now illegable. And Metrocard readers - illegible. You get the picture. THAT is where the money should go. You would be a nitwit to take out a cell phone in the subway today.
MTA = MONEY TAKING AGENCY
Yet they ALWAYS claim they are broke.
Something does not seem right in the Sh*tty state of NY.
You know how many times the flying limbs of all those break dancers hit me?
If they can put cameras on cops, they can put them on subway cars. Most cops now like body cams because they vindicate them so much, lawsuits have plummeted. If department stores can put cams in dressing rooms, you can put them in subways and public restrooms. It is out in the open, there is no privacy. Besides privacy and free speech are mutually exclusive (as Alito ruled in Dobbs). Swiss bank privacy hails from the nazi era. The Greek word for privacy is cognate with idiot. Just study the colonial exhorters. Privacy is a euronazi concept. Unions can check your party before getting you a job and your neighbors can check how much you pay in property tax. Democracy is a glass house and we should like it.
@“You know how many times the flying limbs of all those break dancers hit me?”
I’m sure their limbs hit you a lot on the head!
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