Opinion: Riders can’t afford to strike out in the state budget

With spring comes the start of the baseball season and, perhaps to less fanfare, the New York state budget. As the official voice of riders on New York's subways, buses, LIRR, Metro-North and the Staten Island Rail, the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee is particularly concerned with MTA funding, especially the 2025-2029 Capital Plan. It is what will determine what the MTA does or does not begin building or fixing over the next five years and how it will be paid for.

New York baseball and the transit system that moves millions here every day have a lot in common. It's a challenging time of uncertainty for both, yet there is palpable excitement for what can be. 

A week after Opening Day, the Mets and Yankees are looking forward to tough and competitive seasons. Each team has suffered from unanticipated injuries, but, like true New Yorkers, they are looking at ways to brush themselves off and move ahead. They are in the process of building their teams, while preparing to fight rivals for titles.

The MTA also faces uncertainty, but the consequences are far more substantial. Instead of millions of dollars in player salaries on the line, millions of riders’ daily commutes are at risk from an aging system that still uses switches and signals from the Prohibition era, with some train cars older than my kids. It’s a lot harder to rehab the aging components of our vital transit network, as we’ve seen through terrible periods – like the Summer of Hell – when disinterest and disinvestment overtake public interest and planned investment. It isn’t good for riders, our city, the region or New York’s economy.

A fully funded 2025-2029 Capital Plan will help set the MTA on the path to the safer, more accessible and reliable transit network that riders deserve – a 21st Century system for our 21stt Century region. The $68.5 billion the plan calls for to shore up and improve the $1.5 trillion asset that is our transit system is based on well-researched and documented analysis. The MTA has invested $35 billion in the NY-NJ-CT region over the last decade, and projections show that the proposed plan would generate $106 billion in economic output and more than 72,000 jobs over five years across the state. It’s critical for it to be fully funded in order to realize those benefits and literally keep our region moving.

The good news is that Gov. Kathy Hochul and the Legislature agree that what the plan calls for – the critical State of Good Repair work; signal, station and substation upgrades; accessibility at 60+ subways stations; the largest-ever purchase of new trains and buses; and resiliency work  – are essential to keeping transit, and our region, on track. The bad news is that they haven’t yet come out with a plan for how to fill the $35 billion funding hole needed to do so, which will require around $2.5 billion in bondable, recurring funding streams. We at the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee have a couple dozen ideas that we’re happy to share to get there. They range from direct remittance from the state budget to a delivery fee on packages to a Vehicle Miles Traveled fee to a city mansion tax. Options and opportunities vary, but time is running out.

Support for fully funding the plan was included in the state Senate and Assembly’s one-house budget proposals (albeit without funding sources), as were several fare discount offerings that Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee supported and strongly advocated for. These proposals, championed by state Sen. Leroy Comrie, will expand equitable access to affordable transit for millions – which is crucially important with planned biannual MTA fare increases on the horizon. With so much on the line, transit riders should keep a close eye as the budget progresses – the future of our transit system rides on it.

As jaded New Yorkers, subways, trains and buses are high on our lists of things to complain about, but so too are our sports teams. We have the ability to change at least one of those things this year, starting with a commitment to fully funding the MTA’s 2025-2029 Capital Plan and building the transit system New Yorkers deserve. As for our teams? As a Mets fan, I gotta believe!