From nydailynews.com

Pass congestion pricing and put the city in charge of transit

By PETER PEYSER

MAR 07, 2019 | 2:10 PM

 

Last week, Gov. Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio announced their agreement on a plan to create new revenue streams to reform the MTA and thereby improve transit in the New York metro area. The deal was laudable for its proposal to make substantial new revenues available to fix our crumbling subways and improve our bus system.

But the plan has significant flaws. Consolidating power at MTA headquarters and adding a layer of bureaucracy by creating a new regional oversight committee goes in the wrong direction. Diminishing New York City’s already weak role in managing our transit system will only exacerbate the problems transit riders experience.

Fortunately, City Council Speaker Corey Johnson proposed a better solution this week in his State of the City speech. He released an impressively detailed plan for the city to take control of the subways, buses and overall transit planning under a new entity known as Big Apple Transit. One person would be accountable and in charge: the mayor of New York City.

He rightly pointed out that the facts on the ground that led to the creation of the MTA in 1968 have changed so significantly that a new structure makes sense. Specifically, in the 1960s, the city was sliding into fiscal distress with a declining population and tax base. The subways and buses were beginning to show the strain of disinvestment and labor strife was adding to New York City Transit’s woes. The suburbs, on the other hand, were growing, but were also facing a transportation crisis because of the slow-motion failure of the Long Island Rail Road and the New York Central Railroad commuter services.

In its weakened state, the city had little choice but to sign on to a deal that folded New York City Transit into the MTA in exchange for state assistance. The deal worked reasonably well as the state played an important role in gaining enactment of regional revenue streams and shepherding through successful five-year capital plans to rebuild the subways.

Now, however, the city is once again the economic engine of the region and its revenues and population are growing. But our subways and buses are suffering from massive disinvestment, which has resulted in the current crisis.

How is that possible? In part, the current governance structure of the MTA saps resources out of the city. New York City projects do not get the full investment they deserve based on the amount city residents provide as taxpayers. Further, the city does not get back all the federal funds it generates for the region and the majority of net toll revenue generated on bridges and tunnels within New York City goes to the suburbs.

Did the mayor use what little leverage he had in the discussion with the governor to try to address these inequities? The answer is certainly no.

Johnson is right to call for the Legislature to separate the questions of funding and governance while also supporting congestion pricing.

He is also right to say that the City should have control over the transit system that is its lifeblood. The idea isn’t radical – local control is the norm for major metro areas around the world and in the U.S. Just look at London, Paris, Los Angeles, Chicago, Seattle, and San Francisco.

Our current situation demands that the structure reflect the times of a thriving city of today– not the city of 50 years ago. Albany should pass congestion pricing and a reallocation of revenue streams now and let the city and its regional partners pursue city control of city-based transit.

Peyser is a transportation consultant based in New York and a former staffer to Mayor Ed Koch.