After the chairman of the MTA and the governor who appointed him spent much of the last week arguing that it's the city's job to fund the state-run subway system, it's now Mayor de Blasio's turn to go on the offensive. On Sunday he rode the F train to pointedly ask Governor Andrew Cuomo to take responsibility for the agency. And on Monday, the mayor's office issued five broad recommendations for fixing the subway, while at the same time stressing that the city has no functional role in the operations of the MTA and would not be willing to contribute further funding to its day-to-day budget.
The city's plan addresses issues of accountability and funding currently facing the MTA, and offers five recommendations for "a few of the items that New Yorkers deserve to see in a credible subway turnaround plan."
The plan asks for "immediate relief for riders; public performance goals and standards; clear accountability for continual improvement; an efficient and fair MTA budget and a reallocation of resources towards core needs; and a meaningful state commitment to the needs of subway riders."
The mayor also called on the MTA to be smarter about the way they're currently using their operating budget, "before sending yet another bill to the hard-working taxpayers and riders of New York City." More than two-thirds of the MTA's operating budget is funded by city taxes, fares, and tolls, according to an analysis released by Scott Stringer.
More than an actual blueprint for turning around the subway, the recommendations serve as a preemptive response to the action plan that MTA Chairman Joe Lhota is expected to issue later this week. While Lhota has signaled the plan will include a request for additional city money, the mayor contends that the MTA's action plan "should return the more than $450 million of operating funds diverted from the MTA to the State general fund since 2011." Instead of "funds being made available to [the MTA] for lights on bridges" or other aesthetic improvements, the MTA should be providing immediate relief to riders through core needs, according to the new recommendations.
If there were still any doubts that last month's nonaggression pact between Cuomo and de Blasio had been broken, they were quickly dispelled by the recommendations, and by additional comments made Monday morning by Deputy Mayor Tony Shorris. On a call with reporters, Shorris noted that the subways are failing "by every metric," and repeatedly brought up the governor's plan to spend hundreds of millions of MTA dollars for LED choreographed bridge lights as "a statement about the priorities of the state and the MTA." (The governor's office did not respond to a request for comment.)
Asked about why the mayor has been comparatively more aggressive in acknowledging the troubled transit system in recent days, Shorris said that riders are "feeling a lot of pain right now, the mayor goes where the pain is." But he also maintained that de Blasio has no authority in helping to alleviate this pain, aside from "using his bully pulpit...on behalf of riders."
Mayor de Blasio, Shorris added, will be riding the subways "constantly now."
"The reason we're doing this now is we wanted to put out some of the things riders are looking for—immediate relief, clear accountability, good use of state support," he added.
The Deputy Mayor touched on another explanation for the mayor's increasing willingness to venture down into the subway (something he once called cheap symbolism) and accuse the governor of buck-passing. "The only good part of the emergency that we're in...it's helping to end some of that confusion," explained Shorris. "People are understanding where accountability lies in this."
Indeed, a poll from last week showed that while more than half of city residents now hold Cuomo responsible for the MTA, 35 percent of New Yorkers still think that de Blasio controls the subways. And being held accountable for the subway crisis, it turns out, has a negative impact on overall approval ratings.
