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You know how Governor Paterson said he had an idea to break the State Senate stalemate and get an MTA bailout approved? Well the NY Post has the details: "[The] secret plan to sway state Senate Democrats holding out on an MTA bailout vote is to reimburse school districts that would have to pay the proposed payroll tax." Some State Senators have been unhappy about the payroll tax part of the Senate Dems' plan, which also has a $1 taxi dropoff surcharge and an 8% increase on fares (vs. the 25% doomsday fare hike). According to the Post, Paterson's idea would involve taking money from the state's general fund to "reimburs[e] every school district in the 12-county MTA service region, including NYC," at a cost of $60 million. The source said, "If you use the general fund to relieve school districts of the costs of the tax, the MTA still gets its money and schools get money back from the state." Still, it's unclear if this gesture is enough to sway support, though Albany is almost desperate enough to pass any ol' MTA bailout.
Paterson's MTA Rescue Idea Means Shifting Money Around
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dang, this new era of responsible budgets and honest bookkeeping is really turning out to be annoying.
These guys are unbelievable.
F the MTA at this point. Let them reorganize under bankruptcy like any other worthless organization. It's not like someone is going to impound the trains and tracks, they'd still run. Maybe then they can finally fix many of their systemic problems. The MTA already has its fingers in your income tax, sales tax, payroll tax, tolls... when is enough enough? especially in the highest tax state in the country.
What's even more hilarious about this is how there's already another $620 million deficit after the original $1.2 billion deficit, which they are talking about fixing by cutting overnight service. So even if the magician Paterson figures this problem out, the MTA will just be in the same position in 6 months.
And the MTA was incorporated because of financial issues with the 3 independent lines in the 70's? Man, what a crock.
The bottom line is that the MTA is underfunded. It would be nice to imagine that all of this can be addressed by eliminating inefficiencies (of which there are many), but that wouldn't even come close.
The issue at hand is the State Senate's malevolent refusal to fund the system properly. Don't confuse things. You can be angry at the MTA for innumerable reasons, but when the system grinds to a halt it is 100% the fault of the State Senate's GOP and the hold-out Dems.
It has nothing to do with underfunding. Every additional cent brought in will be spent. There is a systemic problem with both management and labor here that cannot be resolved outside of bankruptcy reorganization with an impartial 3rd party.
Every additional cent SHOULD be spent. For the economic benefit of the city we should be dramatically improving service, especially in the outer boroughs.
Our City's competitive advantage is the high-availability of redundant, affordable transportation.
its not spent on things that increase the capacity, or usefulness of the system. it is drained by retiree costs and bad labor deals. that is the lion share of all the expense. They refuse even in these times to make any concessions and are actually getting increases, so please don't tell me more money is necessary until the MTA actually makes substantial cuts here. The system should be highly automated, have NYPD patrolling the platforms, no station agents, no public relations, lean middle management... Then we can talk about raiding NY'ers for more money, because then it might actually be going to improving the system.
i'm all for taxing the taxis. old UES ladies in furs and drunk clubbers from LI and NJ can cough up the extra coin. leave the commuting proletariat alone, if at all possible.
NYC cabs are very inexpensive compared to other areas in the US. If you don't like the price of a cab, find another mode of transportation.
Dumb, dumb, dumb. I can't believe we're about to cave to that idiot Malcolm Smith.