Agency weighs 50% Metro-North service cut
‘This is the greatest financial calamity the MTA has ever faced’
STAMFORD — After this week’s meeting on the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s budget proposal for next year, Chairman and CEO Patrick Foye made a jarring statement.
The transit system, including Metro-North Railroad, is hemorrhaging money and riders in the COVID-19 pandemic, he said.
If the MTA does not get $12 billion in federal aid, the agency is looking at a 50 percent reduction in train service on MetroNorth and the Long Island Railroad, a 40 percent reduction in New York City subway and bus service, and the elimination of 9,400 transit-worker jobs.
“This is the grimmest potential budget in the more than 100-year history of the MTA and its predecessors. This is the greatest financial calamity the MTA has ever faced, on orders of magnitude worse than the Great Depression,” Foye said of the budget proposal, which goes to the MTA board for approval next month. “We face years and years of billion-dollar deficits, which is on top of structural deficits likely to increase even as we come out of the pandemic.”
Since the virus hit in March, people who once took trains are
now working and shopping from home, and finding entertainment on their televisions and tablets instead of New York theaters, concert halls, museums and stadiums, he said.
According to MTA figures, 61,400 people rode Metro-North trains Monday, a 79 percent drop from that day last year.
“Ridership is down drastically” systemwide, Foye said. “We are providing more service than ridership demands.”
The fiscal hole is so deep that the MTA cannot borrow itself out of it, he said.
“Only the federal government can come to the rescue at the level that we require,” Foye said. “We have to focus our energies there because that’s where the money is.”
So far, help has not come. Members of Congress from New York, New Jersey and Connecticut who have been working to secure funding for the MTA have so far not succeeded, he said.
“It’s been held up by Senate Republicans,” Foye said. “We are hopeful that the Biden administration will take a different view.”
President-elect Joe Biden, a Democrat, is set to be inaugurated Jan. 20.
In the meantime, all that’s needed to get money flowing to the MTA and other public-transit systems is for Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate majority leader, to call for a vote, said U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut.
“We have been warning for months that struggling publictransit agencies in Connecticut and across the country need financial relief immediately,” Blumenthal said Thursday. “The HEROES Act passed by the House of Representatives would provide $32 billion, though much more is needed, but McConnell has refused even to consider that amount. He won’t even give us a vote.”
Others in Washington were negotiating, Blumenthal said. Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi proposed a COVID-19 relief package totaling $2.2 trillion, and the Trump administration counter-proposed $1.8 trillion, he said.
That is stalled.
But “we could pass it tomorrow if McConnell were willing to negotiate,” Blumenthal said. “All he has to do is put it on the floor, and it will be approved. This is not a red or blue problem. Every state has public transit, and every public transit system is hanging by a thread.”
McConnell told NBC News this week he supports COVID aid for schools, health-care providers and small businesses but he has no reason to believe Democratic leaders will accept that.
Foye said he is keeping a close eye on two Senate runoff elections in Georgia, set for Jan. 5, that could tip the balance of power in the Senate. If the Democrats pick up both seats, the Senate would be split evenly between the parties, leaving Democratic Vice President-elect Kamala Harris to break any tie votes.
If that’s the case, Blumenthal said, “the aid will be far more — on the order of $3.4 trillion” for COVID relief, including aid to public transit.
In the meantime, the MTA is planning for the worst. Without federal aid, for example, MetroNorth riders could expect trains every 20 to 30 minutes along the busier segments of the line, and hourly at less busy line segments. Off-peak and weekend service may be hourly, depending how crowded trains get.
In the meantime, all that’s needed to get money flowing to the MTA and other public-transit systems is for Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate majority leader, to call for a vote, said U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut.
New York City subway service reductions could result in reduced train frequency, suspension of service on some lines at certain times of day, and major weekend changes. New York City bus service could be cut by up to 40 percent by eliminating or consolidating routes.
The dire spending plan for 2021 comes despite aggressive costcutting measures taken this year, according to an MTA statement. Savings from unfilled positions after a hiring freeze are expected to total $66 million. Overtime, consulting contracts and other non-personnel expenses have been reduced. The MTA projects $259 million in savings in this year, $601 million in 2021, $498 million in 2022, $466 million in 2023 and $461 million in 2024.
But it is not enough to close the deficits without federal relief, Foye said. He has the support of lawmakers from the tri-state area, he said.
Besides Blumenthal, Democratic U.S. Rep. Jim Himes, D-4th, which includes Stamford, is on board.
“Whenever I talk to workers and business owners in Stamford about their priorities, transportation infrastructure investment is always at the top of the list,” Himes said in an email. “There will come a time when the pandemic has passed, and we will regret it as a country if we don’t provide the aid and investment now to prevent austerity measures that will have serious longterm negative effects in the future in critical economic regions like southwest Connecticut. That’s why I’ll continue to fight for every federal dollar possible.”