{"id":3083,"date":"2024-09-16T12:54:50","date_gmt":"2024-09-16T16:54:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/?p=3083"},"modified":"2024-09-16T12:54:50","modified_gmt":"2024-09-16T16:54:50","slug":"governor-hochuls-mass-transit-pause-casts-shadow-on-state-budget","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/governor-hochuls-mass-transit-pause-casts-shadow-on-state-budget\/","title":{"rendered":"Governor Hochul\u2019s Mass Transit \u201cPause\u201d Casts Shadow on State Budget"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

New York City \u2013 the nation\u2019s largest<\/a> \u2013 is one of the great urban areas in the world.  The Big Apple is also a powerful economic engine.  The City, with its center in Manhattan, is a world leader in banking, finance<\/a>, culture, and communications.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New York City is also highly congested<\/a>, with its large population contained in a dense geographic area, and its roadways often choked with traffic \u2013 particularly in Manhattan\u2019s core.  That congestion not only leads to long commutes<\/a>, but damages<\/a> the health of its residents.  It also creates incredible challenges for emergency service<\/a> personnel and everyone else trying to get around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For well over a century<\/a>, New York City has helped reduce its congestion through an extensive network of mass transit systems<\/a> \u2013 its subways, ferries, and buses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the importance of these systems, over the decades New York has not funded them adequately.  When the City endured its financial crisis<\/a> in the 1970s, cuts<\/a> to the mass transit programs, coupled with years of neglect<\/a>, almost brought the City to its knees.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recognizing that a deteriorating City mass transit network damaged businesses and the overall quality of life, government acted.  Through substantial investments<\/a> and important reforms in the 1990s, the subways and buses of New York City were significantly improved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately, in recent years the mass transit system was taken for granted and support stagnated<\/a>.  In 2020 the impacts<\/a> of the Covid pandemic led to a dramatic downfall in ridership and thus revenues \u2013 deepening the problems into a crisis.  Covid also led to greater use of cars<\/a> and with that more roadway congestion and worsening<\/a> air quality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was the combination of eroding service, antiquated<\/a> equipment and deferred maintenance that drove lawmakers to seek a solution.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2019, congestion pricing was passed into state law with a mandate to raise $1 billion per year for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (which runs the mass transit system) capital improvements program.  In 2023, the state received final approval<\/a> of the program from the federal government.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is congestion pricing?  Congestion pricing <\/a>is a system of surcharging users of public goods that are strained by overuse due to excess demand, such as through higher peak charges for use of bus services, electricity, metros, railways, telephones, and road pricing to reduce traffic congestion.  Applied to urban traffic congestion, the approach is to charge a vehicle if it passes into a certain zone of a city, often only during certain \u201cpeak\u201d hours.  Congestion pricing is not an untested, novel idea:  There are cities around the world that have successfully adopted<\/a> it, including Singapore, London, Milan, and Stockholm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New York\u2019s congestion pricing plan was scheduled<\/a> to go into effect at the end of June.  Earlier this year, the MTA announced<\/a> that it would start charging most passenger cars $15 a day to enter a congestion zone below 60th Street.  Trucks would pay $24 or $36, depending on their size.  Taxi fares would go up by $1.25, and Uber and Lyft fares by $2.50.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The announcement of those tolls triggered an intense opposition to the program\u2019s implementation.  In early June, Governor Hochul announced<\/a> a \u201cpause\u201d in the implementation, without setting a date for when that pause will expire.  Her announcement was surprising given that just two weeks earlier<\/em> she had crowed of her success in getting federal approval.  In her self-congratulatory statement the governor said<\/a>, \u201cIt took a long time because people feared backlash from drivers set in their ways.  In New York City, the idea stalled for 60 years until we got it done earlier this year.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u201cpause\u201d not only reverberated throughout the transportation world, but it also created an enormous hole in the MTA\u2019s finances.  Last week, state Comptroller DiNapoli released a report<\/a> detailing the financial plight of the MTA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the Comptroller, the MTA faces a potential $27 billion funding gap<\/em> in its next capital budget that would replace thousands of rail cars, strengthen the system against extreme weather and increase accessibility.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Without the revenues<\/a> expected from congestion pricing, the MTA is unlikely to be able to fund needed improvements and enhanced services.  One option<\/a> will be to hike the cost of the fares for service, which hits<\/a> the working poor the hardest, those New Yorkers already struggling to afford mass transit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether that happens is a function of when the governor chooses to lift the pause.  The sooner she does, the smaller the budget hole.  If she chooses to make it a permanent pause, then the precarious finances of the MTA become more dire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is not expected that the governor will make her decision before the November election, which makes it increasingly likely that it will become a dominant factor<\/a> in the upcoming state budget deliberations that start in January.  How the state and city provide the needed funding is anyone\u2019s guess, but will likely be a feature of the final budget agreement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keep in mind that New York City is the economic engine of the state, and the nation.  Its lifeblood is a functioning mass transit system.  That system is in jeopardy as a result of Governor Hochul\u2019s 11th<\/sup> hour \u201cpause.\u201d  If changes to the program occur within the context of the state budget, where those revenues come from could impact the quality of other, non-transit, services and the taxes we all pay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The congestion pricing mess is one that affects us all.  We should all hope that the \u201cpause\u201d ends quickly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New York City \u2013 the nation\u2019s largest \u2013 is one of the great urban areas in the world.  The Big Apple is also a powerful economic engine.  The City, with its center in Manhattan, is a world leader in banking, finance, culture, and communications. New York City is also highly congested, with its large population contained in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3083"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3083\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3084,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3083\/revisions\/3084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}