Ridin’ the MTA
Council grills brass on finding own $ for repair
MTA BRASS on Tuesday got a three-hour grilling from City Council members who are apprehensive about handing the beleaguered transit agency money for a subway rescue plan.
Council members asked MTA officials about raids of the statecontrolled Metropolitan Transportation Authority coffers, how the agency will get costs under control and its spending priorities.
MTA boss Joe Lhota, who was absent from the hearing — to the displeasure of Council members — has been calling on Mayor de Blasio to fund half of his $836 million plan to stabilize the deteriorating subway system.
De Blasio has refused to pay, arguing the MTA would have the money it needs if the state returned to the agency $456 million in transit-dedicated revenue it siphoned. In the meantime, de Blasio on Monday proposed a tax on New Yorkers making at least $500,000 a year for long-term transit funding.
Both sides dug in on their positions during the testy hearing — MTA brass pressed the city to help New York’s commuters, while Council members demanded changes to how the transit agency operates and details about how money is spent.
Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito objected to the notion that the city is shirking its duty when it comes to fixing the transit system, pointing out that residents’ tax dollars fund transit operations.
“We are not abdicating our responsibility,” she said.
After the MTA’s testimony, Mark-Viverito said she was dismayed at the level of detail transit officials provided.
“There was a lot of specific information that was not provided and that we will need to determine what position we want to take as a council,” she said.
MTA officials rebuffed the city lawmakers’ complaints that the state had yanked money to run the transit network, arguing the money ultimately went to the transit network’s capital needs.
MTA Managing Director Ronnie Hakim made the pitch for the city to help pay for an emergency transit rescue plan.
“We’ve established a new need and that new need is to respond to what we consider this emergency situation we find ourselves in,” Hakim said. “We’ve heard loud and clear from our customers that the pace at which we were at . . . to improve reliability was inadequate.”