NYC's MTA: A Jagged Little Pill
Well, it's almost official: New York City's Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) has announced its 2009 doomsday budget and it's slated for easy approval. It includes painfully steep fare hikes across the board for transit trains, buses, commuter rail lines and bridges and tunnels.
Could anyone please explain just exactly how the world's most poorly run transportation system is going to be permitted to go ahead with these hikes in the midst of ongoing poor management, zero accountability, falsified and seemingly cooked documentation and record-keeping and missing million-dollar surplus gains?
In April of 2002, the MTA managed to hide a half a billion dollars in its budget and increased the fare based on misleading information. They justified asking for a fare increase back then by keeping two sets of financial plans, one public and one secret, according to a report issued by then State Comptroller Alan Hevesi. Are we having collective memory loss here people? I am curious as to what happened to all that extra cash. Are you?
The MTA - for as long as I have had the misfortune of using its system - is forever bitching and complaining about a lack of funding. Despite being New York City's main and only mode of fast and efficient transportation, the MTA seems to be on a continuous struggle to stay financially afloat, in spite of all of the money we as commuters provide to it.
Since its inception in 1965, the MTA has enjoyed numerous changes in (mis)management, (mis)direction and poor leadership. Prior to its creation, small, private transportation companies kept a skeleton rapid transit system in place that provided only the necessary lines. Going as far back as 1830, NYC has enjoyed some mode - public or private - of transportaion. The city and state have enjoyed changes in leadership as well. One leader always thought that he knew more than his predecessor, yet none managed to leave the system in a better place from when they took office. Only the MTA's original purpose - to become a public benefit corporation chartered by the state of New York to operate North America's largest transportation network - has remained a constant. Still, since its early days, the city and state of New York have poured - through a rather large-mouthed funnel, I might add - literally billions of dollars into keeping it up. The majority of the billion-dollar burden has fallen on the heavily heaped shoulders of the working class.
The way the MTA works is that it manages to screw you at every point. If the fare hikes are too much and you want to drive in to work, well think again. There will also be increases on the tolls for the area bridges and tunnels. So you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. This kind of action prompts public outcries that can be heard all over the five boroughs and beyond. Of course, these outcries lead to much ado about nothing. And in the end, nothing changes.
On April Fool's Day in 1981, the MTA went on strike for 11 days with the goal of increasing the wage for contracted workers. Subway and bus lines in all five boroughs were brought to a complete standstill. Millions of dollars were lost during the strike. Resolution came, but at what cost? Immediately after the strike, the fare increased from 50 cents to 60 cents to offset the MTA's loses during the strike. Again, their mismanagement caused their workforce to strike, but in the end, we the commuters paid the price for it.
In December of 2005, a repeat performance disrupted the system. Another strike threw the entire holiday season into a tailspin resulting from the loss of wages, sales and movement of the City during the busy shopping season. The MTA obviously did not learn from past mistakes to treat their workforce fairly and avoid such disgruntled employees. The loss was astronomical and most likely written on the books to deal with at a later date.
I guess what I am ultimately trying to say is that I remain amazed at the lack of professionalism, accountability and responsibility of one of the world's most recognized transit systems. I remain amazed that we do not have strength in numbers to unearth an agreeable end to the seemingly endless financial crisis of this Venus Flytrap organization. We feed, feed, feed into it and it is never satiated, never satisfied, never out of the red. Instead of protesting the meandering of funds and the ongoing fare hike mania, we continue to patronize a system that treats us like crap. We continue to ride its buses and subways and travel across its bridges and tunnels. We take it, like icky-tasting medicine. We don't like it, but we don't change it either.
A big part of our ongoing poisonous association with the MTA is the lack of choice. In this great, big city, we have no other choice. We, who cannot afford to "cab it" everywhere, or drive in and pay for parking or tickets each day, or to have a private driver driving us around, or who fear risking life and limb to bike in, are obligated by necessity to continue this sick and abusive relationship. We work and work to keep it and ourselves from going under. We watch as the MTA pilfers from the people to plan and execute “projects” such as unnecessary and, most likely over priced art throughout certain stations and the rebuilding of parks and stations that could easily have withstood a few more years, at least until the MTA was on firmer financial footing. We deal with the inconveniences of delays, construction, cancellations, connection losses and – all the while – fare hikes. Every now and then, the periodic fare hike rears its head, when the system finds itself strapped for cash yet again. And in the foreseeable future, all that is fact today will remain the same.
Could anyone please explain just exactly how the world's most poorly run transportation system is going to be permitted to go ahead with these hikes in the midst of ongoing poor management, zero accountability, falsified and seemingly cooked documentation and record-keeping and missing million-dollar surplus gains?
In April of 2002, the MTA managed to hide a half a billion dollars in its budget and increased the fare based on misleading information. They justified asking for a fare increase back then by keeping two sets of financial plans, one public and one secret, according to a report issued by then State Comptroller Alan Hevesi. Are we having collective memory loss here people? I am curious as to what happened to all that extra cash. Are you?
The MTA - for as long as I have had the misfortune of using its system - is forever bitching and complaining about a lack of funding. Despite being New York City's main and only mode of fast and efficient transportation, the MTA seems to be on a continuous struggle to stay financially afloat, in spite of all of the money we as commuters provide to it.
Since its inception in 1965, the MTA has enjoyed numerous changes in (mis)management, (mis)direction and poor leadership. Prior to its creation, small, private transportation companies kept a skeleton rapid transit system in place that provided only the necessary lines. Going as far back as 1830, NYC has enjoyed some mode - public or private - of transportaion. The city and state have enjoyed changes in leadership as well. One leader always thought that he knew more than his predecessor, yet none managed to leave the system in a better place from when they took office. Only the MTA's original purpose - to become a public benefit corporation chartered by the state of New York to operate North America's largest transportation network - has remained a constant. Still, since its early days, the city and state of New York have poured - through a rather large-mouthed funnel, I might add - literally billions of dollars into keeping it up. The majority of the billion-dollar burden has fallen on the heavily heaped shoulders of the working class.
The way the MTA works is that it manages to screw you at every point. If the fare hikes are too much and you want to drive in to work, well think again. There will also be increases on the tolls for the area bridges and tunnels. So you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. This kind of action prompts public outcries that can be heard all over the five boroughs and beyond. Of course, these outcries lead to much ado about nothing. And in the end, nothing changes.
On April Fool's Day in 1981, the MTA went on strike for 11 days with the goal of increasing the wage for contracted workers. Subway and bus lines in all five boroughs were brought to a complete standstill. Millions of dollars were lost during the strike. Resolution came, but at what cost? Immediately after the strike, the fare increased from 50 cents to 60 cents to offset the MTA's loses during the strike. Again, their mismanagement caused their workforce to strike, but in the end, we the commuters paid the price for it.
In December of 2005, a repeat performance disrupted the system. Another strike threw the entire holiday season into a tailspin resulting from the loss of wages, sales and movement of the City during the busy shopping season. The MTA obviously did not learn from past mistakes to treat their workforce fairly and avoid such disgruntled employees. The loss was astronomical and most likely written on the books to deal with at a later date.
I guess what I am ultimately trying to say is that I remain amazed at the lack of professionalism, accountability and responsibility of one of the world's most recognized transit systems. I remain amazed that we do not have strength in numbers to unearth an agreeable end to the seemingly endless financial crisis of this Venus Flytrap organization. We feed, feed, feed into it and it is never satiated, never satisfied, never out of the red. Instead of protesting the meandering of funds and the ongoing fare hike mania, we continue to patronize a system that treats us like crap. We continue to ride its buses and subways and travel across its bridges and tunnels. We take it, like icky-tasting medicine. We don't like it, but we don't change it either.
A big part of our ongoing poisonous association with the MTA is the lack of choice. In this great, big city, we have no other choice. We, who cannot afford to "cab it" everywhere, or drive in and pay for parking or tickets each day, or to have a private driver driving us around, or who fear risking life and limb to bike in, are obligated by necessity to continue this sick and abusive relationship. We work and work to keep it and ourselves from going under. We watch as the MTA pilfers from the people to plan and execute “projects” such as unnecessary and, most likely over priced art throughout certain stations and the rebuilding of parks and stations that could easily have withstood a few more years, at least until the MTA was on firmer financial footing. We deal with the inconveniences of delays, construction, cancellations, connection losses and – all the while – fare hikes. Every now and then, the periodic fare hike rears its head, when the system finds itself strapped for cash yet again. And in the foreseeable future, all that is fact today will remain the same.
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