Comment by slt2021 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by slt2021 | Hacker News Reader

Does anyone have answer as to why MTA is a financial mess and a single elevator project costs $81 mln[1] ?

Congestion pricing seems like a pathetic attempt to squeeze money to fund bloated MTA salaries and bogus overtime[2]. that just eats MTA's budget. Widely cited $15 bln budget hole is roughly comparable to the decade of bogus $1.4 bln overtime that MTA workers accrue

Transit agency must go through a deep and thorough cleanup and restructuring of its finances, before it demands more funding from taxpayers

Same like city of San Fransicko spent $24 Bln with a B with nothing to show for it, arguably situation got only worse[3], while nonprofit and homeless industrial complex only got record funding and record fraud charges

  1. https://slate.com/business/2019/09/mta-elevators-are-the-perfect-example-of-new-yorks-cost-problems.html
  2. https://www.masstransitmag.com/management/blog/55017643/op-ed-excessive-mta-employee-overtime-continues-year-after-year
  3. https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/california-homelessness-spending-audit-24b-five-years-didnt-consistently-track-outcomes/

Because it doesn't: the $81M is to make an entire station ADA compliant, not to install a single elevator.

This is still more than it should cost, but it's important to have the facts straight.

The larger answer to the MTA's financial mess is multitudinous:

1. It's really 5+ independent transport systems folded into one big, unwieldy authority. Some of those systems (particularly the LIRR and MNRR, but not NYCT) are famous for overtime fraud[1].

2. NYCT runs 24/7, which means that maintenance operations need to happen at night or other overtime periods. That means higher baseline costs for labor.

3. The MTA intentionally under-hires, under the financial theory that overtime pay is more sustainable than more heads on the 20-year pension pipeline.

4. Any amount of capital development on the subway is fundamentally expensive, both due to the age of the system, the complexity of the infrastructure that's developed around it, the need to minimize disruption to the rest of the system and city, etc. The MTA has repeatedly opted for bigger, more expensive capital programs that minimize disruption throughout the city, with the SAS's extremely deep tunnels being a good example of this.

[1]: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/highest-paid-mta-employ...

MTA finances are unsustainable if they demand bailout and try to hide it under the label of "congestion pricing".

If you look at what CP advocates say: it is all about ecology, emissions, congestion, freeing up the road for cyclists, etc. Some people mention MTA capital projects and ADA compliance, etc.

But no CP advocate has actually and honestly told the truth: MTA is underwater, its finances, collective bargaining agreement is unsustainable, fraud is rampant, without this extra tax they will simply go bankrupt.

This is the clearest case of mismanagement and dishonest communication with the taxpayers. CP funding should go directly to the city, and any capital MTA funding should come from loans that are repayable (either via additional citywide tax/tolls/fares/City general fund/etc).

You can't keep throwing good money after bad money into this financial black hole

The congestion pricing fees were slated to go into capital programs, not operations. So that would be a very weird way for the MTA to attempt to hide their unsustainability, given that the money wouldn't be available for operational costs.

I don't particularly disagree about the city deserving the money instead. But that would have to come with MTA giving NYCT back to the city, and that is unlikely to happen.

there is at least $2 bln hole due to loss of CP, even after excluding all capital projects and new equipment purchases. And equipment replacement is operational cost, it is not capital project, because in every organization part some part of budget msut be allocated for equipment replacement.

  " even if the MTA were to forego purchasing new subway cars, commuter rail locomotives and buses, the agency would still be $2 billion in the hole."

https://www.nydailynews.com/2024/06/24/loss-of-congestion-pr...

Yes, that’s the hole that state and local funding has left. The third picture in the post shows this pretty clearly.

I have no particular reason to believe that the MTA is an efficient organization. They definitely aren’t. But I also haven’t seen any outstanding evidence of corruption getting worse in the last few years (and lots of evidence to the contrary, vis a vis criminal punishments for OT fraud). The MTA’s operational cost appears to be mostly stagnant, with a decline in local and state budgeting causing the gap, not a rise in waste on their side.

I am curious to learn your opinion: why not simply raise fares, tolls, and add additional tax on companies/payroll/property tax ?

if transit is so beneficial for everyone, as CP advocates claim, people should be happy to pay up to keep their beloved MTA afloat.

Universal tolls will work the same as congestion pricing, arguably even stronger effect and discourage driving across Manhattan.

I don't understand why these tricks with congestion, when the argument is basically we need money for MTA, and nobody actually cares about clean air at MTA.

As much as I object CP, I think honest communication about pathetic cost and budget problem would be more productive. and solution sourcing money from multiple sources via combination of fares, tolls, taxes would dampen an individual effect of a single measure.

Much easier to swallow $200/yr increase in payroll tax, $200/yr increase in tolls, $200/yr increase in fares, rather than $2000/yr charge for CP (because it would apply to smaller population)

Well, the general idea is that it's presumably beneficial to apply a CP charge on net. You discourage people from driving into the city where there's insufficient capacity to move all of the vehicles efficiently.

It's basically pricing an externality that is not normally priced in most cases.

The tax collection is probably the main motivation, but there's going to be significant benefits for many regardless of that - spending less time in traffic, less car usage, etc etc.

I would be more comfortable with separating these two ideas:

  1. If NYC wants to bailout MTA and fund capital projects - they should pay from general budget/taxes/fares directly
  2. if NYC wants to reduce driving - they should introduce CP indepedendently of MTA's capital improvements plan, and don't tie these revenues to MTA at all.

Start from a small charge like $1, then hike to $5, then $10, then $15 and observe change in motorist behavior and congestion observed.

Does anyone actually knows what metrics are used for measure "congestion" and what are expected change in said metric? Its all hand waving and wishful thinking wrapped in earth hugging religion.

MTA would have weird incentives, like they can break down trains to CBD, and force people to take Uber/cab to get to work and trigger congestion pricing tolls and watch $$$ going directly to MTA, while they are slowly doing "maintenance and repairs".

MTA must NOT be financially incentivized to cause transportation collapse and make $mln every time public transit is broken, and people are using cars.

Arguably, the incentive should be the opposite (via fares). The better MTA's service is - more passengers and more Fare revenue they receive. This is how a normal healthy transportation agency would finance their capital investments.

"The better MTA's service is - more passengers and more Fare revenue they receive. This is how a normal healthy transportation agency would finance their capital investments."

[citation needed]

That may be how it works in a consumer product, but not how it works in transit.

I am fine with subsidizing, but incentives should be aligned (like a per transit passenger or something).

CP turns incentives upside down - the worse congestion - more $$$ goes to MTa this is absolutely bonkers.

One additional reason is that a not insignificant amount of the funding comes from New York State. NYS and NYC are in a permanent love/hate relationship, and any process that concerns using tax funds originating from NYC to other parts of the state or vice versa is always difficult.

Except for our state-level income tax: NYS is very content to have NYC disproportionately pay into the state's coffers :-)

(Taxes don't bother me, mind you. What bothers me is that NYS treats NYC as a piggy bank while also keeping the city in a permanent financial chokehold.)

On the one hand, this is a reasonable point to make and I think it's partially why the political support for congestion pricing wasn't there.

On the other hand, in reality, making new transit funding conditional on the MTA cleaning up all its inefficiencies and corruptions will simply translate into transit being underfunded.

It is unsustainable to keep squandering taxpayer money and demanding more and more resources with worse and worse results.

Private sector would never have allowed it

If you think the private sector would have prevented this, you should probably read a bit about the pre-NYCT history of the IRT and BMT :-)

Nobody has every really successfully monetized this kind of mass transit in the US; it's a service that taxpayers fund in exchange for its enormous economic benefits. TFA explains this upfront: NYC would be nowhere near as big and prosperous as it is today were it not possible for millions of people to take trains into the city.

The private sector would ruthlessly fire people, cut and restructure costs. I see none of this happening.

Airlines seem to have no problem fixing their finances and their bankruptcy arguably made them only better

> The private sector would ruthlessly fire people, cut and restructure costs. I see none of this happening.

Again: please read the history of the IRT and BMT. I think you'll find that "cut and restructure" is not an unknown practice in the history of NYC's mass transit, and that it didn't have the effects you're thinking it might.

> Airlines seem to have no problem fixing their finances and their bankruptcy arguably made them only better

Airlines are famous for receiving large federal subsidies to keep them afloat.

Have you taken a plane lately? lol.

Airlines: notorious for over booking, running down planes on maintenance schedules, failing to pay staff properly, providing increasingly worse service to passengers whilst simultaneously jacking up prices, Airlines in my country had to be bailed out over COVID, they’ll leverage the full power of their bottom line to prevent new airlines from entering their market and competing with them, have been caught adjusting (read, increasing) prices on customers based on device and browsing habits.

Airlines are close to the worst example I’d have given for “can do things better”. Basically the only reason plane travel is as safe as it is, is because governments had to get the regulation stick out and force them to do the right thing.

> The private sector would ruthlessly fire people, cut and restructure costs

The private sector would fire people, make everyone else do triple the work, increase costs for consumers, do even less maintenance if they could get away with it, and exit with a fat check the first chance they can.

airlines used bankruptcy to restructure their finances and liabilities, my argument is MTA must go through deep clean as well, before even thinking about extra $ of taxpayer money.

most importantly people must be changed to more qualified, with less greasy palms, fewer connections to corrupt contractors and political connections

I have never seen an airline use a bailout to perform a restructure. At best they wasted the cash on giving an exec a golden parachute.

It is routine procedure, the very purpose of chapter 11 is to protect the company from liabilities and negotiate a new structure where both shareholders and bondholders and employee unions take a haircut in order to salvage the company and its business model.

Company will never recover from chapter11 Unless bondholders, employees, union, all take a haircut and build a new economics(cost structure) for existing business model

It sounds like it’s an issue with political accountability in that it’s unclear who’s in charge and what the hierarchy is and therefore what the priorities are and who’s responsible for implementing them. Transport for London is government run and it is unique in the world in that it is entirely self funding for operating expenses so it’s pretty efficient but it is expensive to use and suffers from overcrowding. An equivalent to a journey from Coney island to Grand central costs about $12 for a single trip or $100 for a week or $4000 per year if you buy an annual ticket. We also have a congestion charge which is about $18 but you will probably pay more than that per hour to park anywhere in the zone in any case.

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