New York's transit leaders breathed a sigh of relief on Monday, as members of Congress agreed on a federal stimulus agreement that will spare the MTA from catastrophic cuts — for now, at least.
The $908 billion agreement, which is expected to pass this week, will include more than $4 billion for the MTA, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer announced on Sunday night.
MTA Chairman Pat Foye called the deal a "promising first step," which would allow the agency to balance its 2021 budget, while dodging the specter of mass layoffs or dramatic reductions in service until at least next year. The agency had asked for $12 billion in federal aid, and now faces an $8 billion budget shortfall in the coming years.
“We are relieved and thankful," Foye said in a statement. "This crucial funding will allow us to get through 2021 without devastating service cuts and layoffs of over 9,000 colleagues.”
Lisa Daglian, the head of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA, said the federal aid should be seen as a "down payment" ahead of additional relief that could be forthcoming under Joe Biden's administration.
"Four billion dollars is decidedly better than no billion dollars," Daglian told Gothamist. "That being said, $4 billion is not going to answer all of the MTA’s fiscal problems — there still needs to be some belt tightening."
Transit officials don't expect ridership to rebound to pre-pandemic levels until 2024, under the "best case scenario." Congestion pricing, which would generate around $15 billion for subways and buses, remains on hold. And despite the relief, the board is expected to approve a fare hike next month.
Meanwhile, the MTA was forced to borrow more than $3 billion from the federal reserve to meet its 2020 budget — money that will begin accumulating interest in 2023.
"There’s still a massive deficit that the MTA is going to have to make up," said Rachael Fauss, a senior analyst with the good government group Reinvent Albany. She noted that the federal agreement does not include money for states and local governments, which could put transit funding at risk.
"We remain deeply concerned about the state’s contributions to the MTA from its dedicated funds, and the possibility that they’ll continue to be withheld and possibly raided by the state," said Fauss.
Others expressed concern about how the aid was allocated. According to a breakdown published by the Washington Post, the deal is expected to include a total of $45 billion toward transportation nationwide — of which $14 billion will go to public transit, $16 billion to airlines, $10 billion to state highways, $2 billion to buses, $2 billion to airports and $1 billion to Amtrak.
Further details about how the money will be divided among transit systems remained unclear as of Monday morning.
Amid growing questions about the heavily-compromised rescue package, transit advocates said the $4 billion in MTA relief should be seen as welcome news not just for subway and bus riders, but for New York City as a whole.
Without the federal aid, the drastic cuts to mass transit would have further crippled the region's economy, erasing over $65 billion in economic output and costing 450,000 jobs by 2022, according to an analysis by the NYU Rudin Center.
"Our federal representatives now know that there is no recovery without transit," said Riders Alliance Executive Director Betsy Plum. "We look forward to securing more aid in the Biden administration and winning long-sought funding parity between transit and highways in the next surface transportation bill."
