MTA Chair & CEO Janno Lieber visits the Rockaways and rides shuttle service throughout Rockaway Resilience venture on Monday, Jan 27, 2025.
Marc A. Hermann / MTA
I used to be in Albany late final week to debate MTA funds at a joint listening to with members of the NYS Senate and Meeting. In my remarks, I got down to remind lawmakers concerning the return on funding they’ve seen since passing the 2023 finances deal, which allowed us to take care of excessive ranges of transit service—top-notch efficiency, rising ridership, and an company that’s changing into extra environment friendly and worthy of the general public’s belief daily.
That settlement challenged the MTA to provide you with $400 million in annual recurring financial savings. We hit that concentrate on, and this yr we’ll exceed it with $500 million in new efficiencies, with out resorting to layoffs, service cuts or fare hikes.
Consequently, MTA’s finances is definitely 3% decrease now than it was in 2019, even with a ton of additional subway and rail service, to not point out a brand new 714,000 sq. foot terminal at Grand Central Madison and a whole bunch extra elevators to take care of round our community.
Now we have the bottom per-rider working price and the bottom per-rider subsidy within the nation, and we’re not stopping there. Now we have a variety of effectivity initiatives underway – from lowering how lengthy it takes to rent employees and optimizing the cycle for subway and rail automobile overhauls and inspections to canceling licenses for software program that staff aren’t utilizing.
We’re additionally systematically reviewing each system issued to MTA employees so we are able to eradicate telephones and different tech folks don’t want. I do know this as a result of they took away my iPad.
That’s good authorities at work. So, I believe it’s time to retire the outdated speaking factors about how the MTA doesn’t handle its cash. It is a new MTA.
Clearly, we nonetheless have a protracted method to go on points like public security and fare evasion. However we’re making actual progress. Within the final six months, subway fare evasion is down 25%, and bus fare evasion has dropped 12%. Our technique – publicity, stronger bodily obstacles and loads of enforcement – is beginning to repay.
Now we’re asking Albany to place its religion in us once more and fund the MTA’s $68.4 billion 2025-2029 Capital Plan. Now we have been candid about the truth that many parts of our $1.5 trillion system are falling aside as a result of outdated age and disinvestment, and it has an actual affect on service. Take a look at what occurred with latest outages in Brooklyn and at Columbus Circle – historic electrical energy infrastructure was in charge.
Within the wake of those incidents, elected officers and riders alike have pleaded with the MTA to do the work to make sure transit doesn’t slip again into one other Summer time of Hell or worse. We need to!
Transit is completely essential to this State’s success, however we’d like our leaders to behave first and provides us the assets to take care of and replace the system. The brand new MTA will take it from there.
Janno Lieber is MTA chair and CEO.
