Chill Out, Gov
Congestion pricing without MTA reform is folly
NEW York state’s budget deadline is April 1, and Gov. Cuomo is working to maintain an atmosphere of crisis to get the Legislature to pass congestion pricing, or something like it, lest we face doom. But doing it fast and wrong will make New York’s transit situation worse.
To listen to the governor, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority needs money now. “Either the rider pays in fares and tolls, or it’s congestion pricing,” Cuomo last month told business leaders, who are presumably to pressure lawmakers. “That’s the real choice.”
That’s a false choice. Congestion-pricing money — up to $1.5 billion a year, from tolling cars and trucks into core Manhattan — is not supposed to defray fare increases.
It is true that the MTA faces a half-billion budget deficit next year, growing to a billion in two years’ time. Despite budget cuts, labor costs will grow by 10.5 percent over three years, to $11.1 billion. The health-care bill for workers and retirees, already tripled in little more than a decade, will grow by 23.8 percent, to $2.6 billion.
Recent history should be instructive. In 2009, lawmakers passed a payroll tax in the middle of the night — a tax that, along with sundry other taxes passed at the same time, brings in $2.1 billion annually to the MTA. Growing costs have consumed that money, which is why the MTA is right back in a cash crunch again.
Congestion-pricing money is supposed to go to better subways and buses, not to unsustainable health-care costs.
Speaking of which: How is New York City Transit chief Andy Byford’s initiative to modernize subway signals and the like going?
Nearly a year after Byford announced the plan, we have no schedule. Which subway lines will we modernize first? How much will each project cost, and how long will it take? And how will we address the impact of a closed line by adding more buses above ground?
As it is, the MTA struggles to spend the money it already has when it comes to long-term physical assets.
Consider: The MTA is nearing the end of a regular f iveyear infrastructure-upgrade program, money to be invested in projects between 2015 and 2019, and to cost $33.3 billion. But it only has spent $10.9 billion of that money.
As for the state contribution to that plan: Cuomo promised $8.6 billion out of the regular state budget — that is, without new fees or taxes — but has only provided $800 million. Let’s see that money before soaking drivers.
So, we have time to do this right. What do lawmakers need before they can vote in the interest of their constituents?
First, details of the next labor agreement between New York City Transit and the Transport Workers Union. The current agreement conveniently expires just after the state budget is complete. The risk is that with new cash, the state will pressure the MTA to do another easy deal with the union that pushes costs up even higher.
Any new agreement should contain savings for health care, including a provision that future retirees rely on Medicare — good enough for everyone else — rather than on riders and taxpayers.
Second, details of who, the city or the state, will be responsible for congestion pricing. Two weeks ago, Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio produced an agreement that said they would work the details out later.
But congestion pricing would work best in the hands of the city, especially under a future mayor who cares about traffic. What if the city wanted to use the pricing tool to raise the price on busy traffic days, like the Saturday before Christmas, and lower it in slow months? Are we going to ask upstate senators for permission every time?
Finally, lawmakers should insist on a schedule of the MTA’s capital needs and which projects congestion pricing will fund. Otherwise, the risk is that Albany will skim off money to please swing-district voters in the suburbs with better commuter rail — a fine idea, but one that should be paid for by the people who benefit.
New York gets one chance to get congestion pricing right. The MTA likely will borrow against 20 to 40 years’ worth of this money to spend in one five-year period. If we don’t do it right, the MTA will be back in less than a decade, asking for more.