This week the MTA outlined its financial plan for the next four years, which includes eliminating 2,700 jobs either through layoffs, attrition or just not filling vacancies in what Chairman Pat Foye calls “position reductions.”
Those job cuts are expected to start in January, aided by the most recent hire for the newly created position of Chief Transformation Officer, Anthony “Definitely Not A Hatchet Man” McCord. The cuts and other reorganization measures, which were part of the conditions for getting congestion pricing passed, are expected to save the MTA $1.6 billion over four years.
Still, even with these transformation efforts, the MTA is still facing deficits in the coming years, mostly due to putting off debt payments. As transit newsletter Signal Problems points out, 16 percent of its annual operating budget is swallowed up by paying off debt, and that percentage is likely to increase for the foreseeable future. And all of the MTA's budget figures assume there won’t be a recession and that economic growth will chug along at the current pace.
The MTA saw an unexpected uptick in riders from July to November, which pumped $253 million more into its coffers, but the financial plan also slashes maintenance staff, so there’s concern that even if service improves, it could fall back into the disrepair it’s clawed out of recently, and ridership may decline again.
Chairman Foye says not so.
“We now have vacuum trains that pick up trash...those vacuum trains have done an effective job of picking up trash,” and reducing fires. Foye added that with the $51.5 billion capital plan coming, there will be better signals, so everything will be fine.
And despite the grim financial forecast, a decline in crime citywide and on the subways, the MTA is moving forward with the governor’s plan to hire 500 more MTA police officers. The MTA released the cost for the first time Thursday, pegging the new hires at $249 million over five years.
The MTA budget directors said the agency expects to save $50 million a year in preventing fare evasion, or $200 million over the course of the plan.The agency has estimated that fare evasion will cost them $300 million in revenue this year, out of a $17 billion annual budget.
Several MTA board members, mostly de Blasio appointees, Veronica Vanterpool, David Jones and Bob Linn, have raised concerns about hiring more police.
“This is not the way to come up with increased amounts of money, since almost two-thirds of (fare evasion) is a bus problem and it’s creating a rather explosive situation in the communities I know about,” Jones said yesterday. “I would like an in-depth dive on this.”
In an example of the shifting rationale for putting more officers in the subways (initially it was to address fare evasion and assaults on workers, then more broadly “quality of life” issues), Foye yesterday invoked 9/11, and specifically fighting terrorism as another reason the MTA should hire 500 officers.
“I don’t need to point out to anybody in this room, that not far from where we meet today was a terrible act of terrorism on 2001. Transportation facilities across the world, Madrid, Belgium, Zaventem airport, London, etc,” Foye said. “Those risks are real and remain with us.”
Foye added that anti-Semitic hate crimes are up, and the Transport Workers Union (which backs the hiring) reports a 40 percent increase in assaults against subway workers this year.
“I feel this way, and I think most of our customers do, it is reassuring to see early in the morning, late at night or when customers feel uneasy to see a police officer riding the subway, riding the Long Island railroad,” Foye said. “And it was never the case that officers were going to be devoted 100 percent to fare evasion and wouldn't do general policing, of course that's not the case. “
The MTA already has 800 police officers who make up its own accredited police force, which carries weapons and issue tickets and summonses. These officers are responsible for subways, buses, Long Island Railroad properties, Metro-North properties, as well as Bridges and Tunnels. This summer Governor Cuomo ordered 200 more NYPD officers, 100 Bridge and Tunnel officers and 200 MTA police to focus on “quality of life issues” in the subways and on buses. Those officers will remain in the subways until the new officers are hired.
The NYPD also has about 2,500 additional officers assigned to patrol the subways.
Speaking to reporters Thursday, NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill said it’s up to the state if they want to hire more police. “If they put additional officers into the subway system we will work with them to make the subway system even safer,” O’Neill said. “We have a very robust counterterrorism program in the NYPD. We have great partners in the MTA police and we have great partners in the New York state police. So, that’s a decision that’s going to be made on the state level.”
Transit advocates said the governor should focus resources on better service, “rather than spending $249 million the MTA doesn't have on a new police force it doesn't need,” as Danny Pearlstein with Riders Alliance put it on Thursday. "The governor should put the priorities of eight million riders a day first. New Yorkers are much more interested in getting to work and home on time than in hiring police when crime in the city and on transit is near record-lows.”
Mayor Bill de Blasio backs the governor’s plan, while his possible successor, City Council Speaker Corey Johnson, told PIX 11 that hiring 500 police "is not a wise decision."
The MTA board is expected to vote on the operating budget next month, although the MTA has already begun the recruitment process for the 500 new police officers.
The MTA budget also relies on the city paying half the costs of Access-A-Ride services, which offer disabled New Yorkers $2.75 van rides and on-demand vehicles for 1,200 users, anywhere in the city. Currently the city pays a third of the costs; raising the city’s contribution would save the MTA an estimated $100 million a year. In 2018, paratransit services cost the MTA $550 million.
Mayor de Blasio said he’s not in favor of this proposal.
"Despite being legally responsible for providing paratransit service, the MTA seems to think it's easier to extort New Yorkers for additional funds than to solve their long-term management woes or create a long-term solution,” City Hall spokesperson Freddi Goldstein wrote in a statement. “New Yorkers already contribute their required share to the paratransit program -- the MTA should submit to an independent audit of its paratransit system, convince New Yorkers it has its budget under control, and come up with a plan to rein in inefficient services before demanding another contribution from city residents."
Foye replied, “I’m not sure what that means,” referring to an independent audit of paratransit. But he said that if the city asks for more information about the program he’d provide it.
