Affects Service Quality: MTA on Slow Train To Financial Woes

Affects Service Quality
MTA on Slow Train To Financial Woes

By GINGER ADAMS OTIS

Improved real estate revenues gave the Metropolitan Transportation Authority an end-of-the-year boost worth a billion dollars in 2005, but overall the agency is deep in debt and can't keep up with routine repairs, improvements and planned expansions, a watchdog group said in a report issued June 27.

The Chief-Leader/Michel Friang 'NEED INDEPENDENT REVIEW': Gene Russianoff (center), lead attorney for the Straphangers Campaign, called for better oversight of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's finances at a forum discussing the agency's fiscal policies. Citizens Budget Commission Research Director Charles Brecher and MTA Executive Director Katherine N. Lapp later debated increased fares and better bookkeeping as possible ways of lessening the MTA's ongoing billion-dollar deficits. The nonprofit, business-backed Citizens Budget Commission released the details of its study last week at a panel featuring two of the report's contributors, as well as MTA Executive Director Katherine N. Lapp and Gene Russianoff, senior attorney for the Straphangers Campaign at the New York Public Interest Group.

Not Managed Wisely

Citing concerns that the MTA hasn't been run financially in a "consistent or sensible manner," CBC Director of Research Charles Brecher said it was vital that the state's public transportation system balance its operating budget and provide sufficient capital to accelerate the pace of repair and maintenance projects.

Those projects, the CBC said, have fallen far off schedule. The Long Island Rail Road is the most up-to-date, but lacks modern line structures. Those won't be restored until 2014. Metro-North line structures won't be fully restored until 2026, and its station upgrades won't be complete until 2020. New York City Transit's bus fleet was restored in 1986 and subway cars and mainline track were upgraded in 1991, but major investments are still needed elsewhere. The signal system in subways, for example, won't be fully modernized until 2027.

The MTA has said that making large repairs on a system that's in use 24 hours a day is logistically difficult and places a heavy burden on commuters who bear the brunt of weekend and late-night service disruptions.

But the slow progress, along with other factors, has taken a financial toll. The agency has operated at a deficit for 13 of the past 14 years, and is projected to have a $3.5 billion deficit in 2009, up from $2 billion in 2006.

'Bigger Every Year'

"It's not trivial; these are big deficits each year," said Mr. Brecher. In 2009, one out of every four dollars will go toward paying down debt - 28 percent of the MTA's operating budget, he noted.

Ms. Lapp responded that the MTA had done a "tremendous job" in improving its finances of late, but otherwise didn't dispute the report's findings. The agency has greatly benefited from the city's real-estate boom through the space it rents out, but "once the market starts to cool," she added, "that could be a problem for the MTA."

According to Ms. Lapp, the biggest threat to MTA solvency came from its growing debt service - a growth she attributed in large part to spiraling pension and health-care costs for agency employees. Those costs, she said, need to be addressed now.

Urges Outside Review

The panelists offered several ways in which the agency could get itself back in the black - including productivity changes that wouldn't necessarily exclude streamlining MTA management. Mr. Russianoff said the time had come to rein in some of the MTA's fiscal autonomy.

"Nobody except the Comptroller, in a very limited way, can review the MTA budget," Mr. Russianoff pointed out. "I think state authorities need annual budget reviews by a committee that's powerful and independent."

The CBC said increasing revenues and returning maintenance costs to the MTA's operating budget would improve its fiscal outlook.

The group's report suggested an increase in bridge and tunnel tolls to cover the cost of their maintenance and repair; a higher percentage to the MTA from state fees gleaned from motorists - driver's license revenues, gas taxes and energy taxes, for example - and having mass transit fares cover 50 percent of the system's operating costs.

Cites Impact on Riders

Ms. Lapp balked at the last suggestion, saying that monthly MetroCards would jump to between $93 and $102. Commuter fares would be hit even harder, with an LIRR monthly pass from Ronkonkoma to Manhattan costing $442 instead of the current $260.

Getting people out of cars and into mass transit was the bottom-line need for the MTA, she said, but adding tolls on East River bridges and adopting congestion pricing - which would heavily tax drivers who entered busy city streets - was "obviously politically challenging."