Another MTA Fare Hike: It Doesn’t Have to be Déjà Vu (all over again)
July 22, 2008
Just last year, I stood on the steps of City Hall with Gene Russianoff of NYPIRG’s Straphangers Campaign to protest an MTA fare hike. Now it’s happening all over again.
It came as no surprise to me when a MTA official leaked to the New York Times that once again the MTA is facing widening budget deficits. New York State has all but abandoned its fiscal responsibility to the MTA for the last decade and a half, leaving the Transit Authority’s fiscal health up to the volatility of real estate taxes, while forcing the MTA to balance shortfalls on the backs of middle and low-income straphangers through repeated fare hikes. The MTA is once again looking at another fare and toll hike, which would be only the second time in the 100 year history of the subway that fares are raised in back-to-back years.
While the MTA’s budget deficits look grim, and a fare hike seems unavoidable, it is only because New York State refuses to unshackle itself from one of the most regressive income tax structures in the country. What most New Yorkers don’t even realize is that if they make $45,000 a year they are in the same income tax bracket as New York’s elite millionaires and billionaires.
Last March the Assembly Democratic Caucus announced a plan to raise $1.5 billion in revenue for transportation through a less than 1% income tax surcharge on those New Yorkers earning over a million dollars. While Governor Paterson and the State Senate did not embrace this plan at the time, I believe the current state of the MTA’s finances demand that the Governor take a second look. If Governor Paterson has the foresight to call the legislature back to Albany to pass some form of the millionaire’s tax he would break the cycle of balancing the MTA’s budget on the backs of straphangers who can least afford to pay.
But an income tax surcharge on those earning over a million dollars is only a short term solution. If Governor Paterson has the vision and the fortitude he should champion a more progressive income tax structure as the centerpiece of his 2009 legislative agenda, such as the Working Families Party has put forward, we should go far beyond just plugging the MTA’s budget gaps and instead reinvigorate our State’s fiscal health, while giving millions of middle- and low- income New Yorkers tremendous tax savings.
Video from “Traffic Congestion and the Future of Mass Transit: What’s Next?”
July 6, 2008
For those of you who missed the public forum I held on June 26, it was an excellent event. Here is some video of what you missed.
The event started with introductory remarks from each of our three panelists. First, Ted Kheel from the Institute for Rational Urban Mobility spoke.
Next, Gene Russianoff from NYPIRG Straphangers Campaign gave his remarks.
Finally, Jeffrey Zupan of the Regional Plan Association gave his introduction.
Then we took questions from the audience. The following clips show me reading an audience member’s question and different members of the panel responding to those questions.
QUESTION 1: Is the MTA fundamentally broken? Has any third party actually looked at the MTA’s books? And what can be done to make the MTA more responsive?
QUESTION 2: Why do we persist in linking funding mass transit with vehicle reduction?
QUESTION 3: Is is it realistic to expect progress out of Albany on things like bus lane cameras?
QUESTION 4: What can we expect from the federal government in terms of mass transit money in the future?
QUESTION 5: Should we consider changing to a system where MTA users pay based on the length of their ride?
QUESTION 6: How is congestion pricing working in other cities that have adopted it?
QUESTION 7: How do we change the culture of the way MTA riders use the system to make it more efficient (i.e. leaving from the back of the bus)?
QUESTION 8: Why are we investing in old technologies with the MTA?
QUESTION 9: How could free mass transit reduce vehicle usage?
QUESTION 10: If each of you could be the Czar of Mass Transit - what would your plan be?
