Quote:
Originally Posted by Crawford
This is all bullshit.
-The MTA, at this moment, has the highest credit rating in its history. It has been judged an strong steward of public dollars. You might not agree, but that's the official word per the ratings agencies. It has the best rider-per-dollar ratio of any major U.S. transit agency, BTW.
-COVID funding was essential to keeping the system running. Without COVID funding and with ridership revenue near zero, the system would have been cut to the bone. An agency with fixed salary/benefits costs cannot survive when 40% of revenue vanishes.
-Congestion pricing would bring in $15 billion, to start. It was bonded for $15 billion. So "pausing" the start immediately eliminates $15 billion from the budget. That will be enough to eliminate every single expansion project, all the essential track upgrades as well as almost all the (court-mandated) accessibility improvements.
|
How are you going to call all bullshit and then not refute any of my points directly?
1. I don't care about MTA credit rating, its a quasi-government agency. If it was a purely private corp its bonds would've been trading at junk/bankrupt, as it is running at upwards of 50% deficit every year. That says nothing about how it actually spends its dollars or its efficiency. We all know where the money is going and how much various MTA projects cost. We are talking about some of the most expensive track costs per mile in the world, some of the most expensive escalators in the world, some of the most expensive stainless steel staircases in the world, some of the of the most expensive subway elevators in the world, etc. You know our MTA costs better than anyone, I don't have to tell you that.
"It has the best rider-per-dollar ratio of any major U.S. transit agency," - ??? What is the ratio of fares revenue as % of ongoing operating budget? NYC MTA is at 27%. For example, Boston MBTA is at 35%. Vegas and Bay area BART have the best farebox recovery ratios in the US at around 50-ish%. Private systems in Japan have farebox revenues at above 100%, so they are actually profitable on top of providing essential high quality transportation services to the masses.
2. I never said COVID funding was not essential. I said it was all pissed away. Remember subway greeters?
3. Congestion pricing would not bring $15 billion. They were going to borrow $15 billion against the revenue of $1 billion and pay it off over decades. Again, like I said, in the grand scheme of things, it is only about 5% of MTA yearly operating budget. If 5% extra money could magically fix all of the issues, then the MTA would've had that money long time ago. What will happen is MTA just going to "absorb" this new revenue stream overtime and in 10 years they will be back crying about the lack of funds, in other words business as usual. Just to put it in perspective,
entire revenue from congestion pricing is less than ongoing MTA yearly operating budget deficit! So in theory, MTA can already absorb all of this revenue just to run business as usual with no upgrades, and still run at a deficit.
Just so we are clear, they are promising to build a 1.7 mile (!) extension for the Q train of rather dubious need for having $15-18 tolls to Manhattan
in perpetuity. As a fan of subways, I say it is a bad deal. Not to mention this was supposed to be constructed even before congestion pricing was even thought of. I think there would be less opposition if MTA said that they could construct the entire 2nd avenue line for that money, like any other functional subway agency would given that kind of money.
Prev
Linear Mode
