Transit ax could KO 450G jobs – study
If the MTA’s call to Congress for billions in pandemic relief goes unheard, draconian service cuts to New York’s mass transit could imperil 450,000 jobs across the region, said a report published Wednesday by New York University’s Rudin Center for Transportation.
Metropolitan Transportation Authority Chairman Patrick Foye said Wednesday the agency is prepared to slash subway and bus service by 40% and commuter rail service by 50% to plug a budget gap caused by falling ridership and tax subsidies. He also floated the possibility of eliminating $4.8 billion in transit construction projects.
The cuts would be by far the most drastic in the MTA’s history — and “would undermine any recovery the city would have,” said Mitchell Moss, director of the Rudin Center.
Wednesday’s report estimated the service reductions would lead to 8,000 layoffs among the MTA’s workforce of 70,000, which would indirectly lead to another 5,300 job losses. Another 23,000 jobs would be affected by the proposed construction cuts.
But the real economic impact of the proposed cuts would be hundreds of thousands of lost jobs that are not possible without reliable mass transit, NYU’s statistical modeling shows.
In total, the hit adds up to roughly 450,000 lost jobs, the report states.
“The entire structure of the economy depends on people having quick, reliable and safe access to jobs,” said Moss. “If we make these cutbacks people are just going to stay home and work. They’re going to work locally. And then there’s the suburban counties, which depend on commuting into Manhattan as a source of income.”
Foye and other MTA officials have for months threatened massive reductions in service if the federal government can’t provide COVID-19 relief money.
The agency argues that its $51.5 billion 2020-24 capital plan would directly and indirectly create jobs across the country. But Congress has not since March passed any pandemic relief bill that would include MTA funding.
Transit honchos plan to save $640 million from the MTA’s $17 billion budget next year by slashing consulting and overtime costs. They will also dip into tax money dedicated to construction costs to cover the current expense shortfall.
MTA officials also have the option to take out $3 billion in loans through the Federal Reserve’s Municipal Liquidity Facility.
But the spending cuts and new borrowing won’t be enough to keep the agency above water, its leaders say.
MTA officials said they need $12 billion in federal relief by the end of 2021 in order to prevent the service cuts. The agency’s chief financial officer, Bob Foran, said if the money doesn’t come, the process to commence drastic cuts would begin in January.
It’s unclear what a 40% reduction in subway service would look like, as the city’s system is designed to operate 24/7 and does not have enough capacity in its rail yards to store the MTA’s fleet of subway cars. The agency has continued to run subway trains on the same schedules from 1 to 5 am. even after the system began to close each night during those hours on May 6 under a Gov. Cuomo order.
Foye said transit officials are prepared to figure out how to slash subway trains schedules by nearly half — but said those discussions are so far “premature.”