Are you happy with Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s stewardship of the subways?
More than a year after the state-run Metropolitan Transportation Authority launched its emergency Subway Action Plan, and nearly six months after the MTA announced its longer-term “Fast Forward” plan, riders aren’t seeing much in the way of improvement. They shouldn’t despair, though.
Despite scant news coverage, we do have an election for governor in three weeks, and two upstart candidates — who aren’t even from the city — are running hard on subway failure.
Fact is, the “improvements” after a year’s worth of panicky “emergency” work on the subways are marginal. Yes, people are waiting less time for, or on, trains, with passengers arriving about two and a half minutes later than expected, down from nearly three minutes last year.
But from May through August, the MTA had 278 “major” subway incidents — breakdowns that disrupt rides for tens of thousands of people. That was five more than during the same months of 2017.
And last year, 71.3 percent of trains met a “wait assessment” standard, meaning they were close to on-time at each stop; this year, 71.2 percent of trains met the standard.
So the average commuter hasn’t noticed much of a difference, despite $836 million in extra funding.
As for the Fast Forward plan to invest tens of billions of dollars in modernization? It’s stuck in stall: The governor hasn’t said when it starts, or where the money will come from.
Much of the money that might come from congestion pricing, or from putting a surcharge on real estate located near new transit investments, would be consumed by the MTA’s regular day-to-day cost increases, anyway.
As Tom DiNapoli, the state comptroller, noted last week, the MTA faces a nearly $300 million budget gap in 2020, and a more than $600 million gap by 2022. That’s despite new taxes on Manhattan Uber, Lyft and taxi rides that will bring in $300 million annually, and despite scheduled fare hikes.
The spending growth is to cover costs like employee health care, which will rise from $1.9 billion in 2018 to $2.6 billion in 2022, and debt costs for already undertaken big projects, which heads up from $2.6 billion to $3.3 billion.
Turning this around requires leadership, but the governor continues to insist, against nearly half a century of practice, that the city, not the state, is responsible for the subway.
“New York City owns the Transit Authority,” he said in an August debate with primary challenger Cynthia Nixon. The city, technically speaking, also owns the land beneath JFK and La Guardia Airport. But that has not stopped the governor from (rightly) taking credit for upgrade projects there.
Cuomo tries to ignore the subway for a simple reason: A savvy politician knows the city won’t decide the gubernatorial election. If it’s close, the suburbs will.
The only thing that will make the governor pay more attention is for city voters to make it clear their votes are at risk. And they can do that; they have choices.
Marc Molinaro, the GOP candidate and current Dutchess County executive, has put out a 30-page proposal on “Revitalizing the MTA for the 21st Century” — with suggestions for everything from the MTA’s health-care costs to changing “anachronistic” work rules to make sure construction workers are as productive as they can be.
Many people are rightly concerned about the direction the national GOP has taken under President Trump, but they should be heartened by this development. When is the last time a Republican candidate staked his possible legacy on transit?
“I will take responsibility for fixing the transit system in New York City,” Molinaro told me Monday, calling the subways “the lifeblood of the city, not least” for the “most vulnerable . . . I want to be held responsible.”
Another candidate, independent (and previously longtime Democrat) Stephanie Miner, would put her experience as former mayor of Syracuse to work in tackling transit.
She wants any new MTA spending to be “tightly monitored and controlled,” with the MTA “qualify[ing] for additional tranches of funding as it meets benchmarked standards for performance.”
She, too, wants to be held accountable for the results.
“The subway and the transit system are the foundations of the New York City … economy and foundations for our state economy,” she told me.
There is one way for progressive New Yorkers to get Cuomo to care: Pay attention to the credible opposition.
This piece originally appeared in the New York Post
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Nicole Gelinas is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and contributing editor at City Journal. Follow her on Twitter here.
This piece originally appeared in New York Post