THE PACKAGE
Eight bills to fill the operations deficit for the MTA, improve service, increase accountability, and treat transit like the public good it is for all New Yorkers.
Spending Bill
The MTA Freeze Fares, Fund Frequency & Free Bus Act (Gianaris S4024/Mamdani A4122) will:
Freeze fares
New York City is deep into an affordability crisis – whether looking at rent, utility prices or the rising costs of basic goods due to inflation. As we lead the state in unemployment, more than doubling the rate of the next region, many New Yorkers cannot afford a fare increase.
And for the 1.4 million New Yorkers living in poverty, a fare hike could be catastrophic. These New Yorkers already forgo essential activities, like medical care and job opportunities, because of the high cost of subway and bus fares. And means tested programs have not helped: in 2021, the Community Service Society found that 48% of eligible New Yorkers hadn't applied for the Fair Fares program and 14% didn’t know how to, mostly in the Bronx.
Our bill rejects the proposal to increase fares and holds at the current $2.75 for subways, and will cost an average of $245M/year.
Fund frequency
New Yorkers are waiting too long for the buses and trains — subway and bus riders cite wait time as a key issue (at 48% and 55% respectively). For the increasing number of service workers commuting outside of 9-5 hours and outside Manhattan, this is particularly detrimental. Our bill creates:
6-minute headways (or better) for subways and a 20% increase in service across the bus system. Together, these will cost $788M/year.
More reliable, frequent service would return faith to the MTA, increase ridership (by about 15%) and thereby address safety concerns — the reason 44% of riders currently say they are no longer using the subway.
Wait times also cost the City money: the NYC Comptroller's office estimates that wait times of 5 minutes or more could cost the City up to $389M in economic activity annually. At a time of possible economic insecurity, increasing frequency will help keep the City’s economy healthy. In fact, the NYC Comptroller's office has reported that wait times of 5 minutes or more behind scheduled times could cost the City up to $389M in economic activity annually.
Funding frequency will also help our State’s fight against climate change: subway rides are 10 times greener than car trips, and riding the bus reduces commute emissions by 41% compared to driving, according to the MTA.
To facilitate this policy, we are also allocating $500M as one-time operating money to cover personnel needs, rolling stock procurement and facility costs associated with this increase in service.
Establish free buses for all New Yorkers
Inflation is crushing New Yorkers and the State must step in to provide relief. Establishing free buses over the next four years mitigates the skyrocketing cost of living – particularly for a ridership that is disproportionately working class and of color, often with no alternative to taking the bus – while creating universal transit access.
This has precedent: Boston is currently running free buses on three lines, buses are free across the state of Connecticut and DC is set to make their buses free as well.
Here in NYC, we will phase in an entirely free bus system over four years by borough, starting with the Bronx in the first year, Brooklyn in the second, Queens in the third, and then Manhattan and Staten Island in the fourth. The sequencing of the phase-in derives from a study of median household incomes, poverty rates, share of commuters, and bus ridership across each borough.
The benefits of free buses are manifold:
Speed up travel times:
Improve safety:
In Kansas City, security incidents decreased 39% from 2019 to 2020, and 80% of residents reported an increased sense of safety on fare free buses.
At least 30% of MTA bus assaults are connected to fare collection.
Increase access to essential services:
In Kansas City, more than 80% of people reported an increased access to medical appointments and the ability to shop more frequently for food and other essentials.
Boost educational outcomes:
When offered free bus passes, thousands more students in LA accessed the bus (source), and saw improved educational outcomes including:
Decrease in absences
Increase in academic performance
27% higher graduation rate among riders over the non-rider population
Fully phased in, this will cost $778M/year.
Ensure realistic, prudent budgeting
Our bill will fill the deficit, account for ridership levels continuing to stagnate; factor in realistic union contracts given current inflation rates; and require that, moving forward, the MTA only issue bonds with level debt service payments.
Programmatic Bills
Bus lane enforcement (Krueger S00153/Hyndman A02610)
Bus lanes enable buses to move faster and be more reliable, but ongoing lane violations disrupt this purpose. The MTA has begun a successful automated bus lane enforcement (ABLE) program to tackle these issues.
This bill makes the program permanent and expands camera enforcement to include additional existing City traffic rule violations to ensure buses move efficiently and serve their riders properly.
Utility relocation (Comrie S4415/Mamdani A4035)
We need to speed up MTA construction processes. Utilities shouldn’t impede these timelines; they should help to move them along.
This bill mandates that public service corporations perform work required to support MTA construction projects on a reasonable schedule.
Capital projects reporting requirements (Ramos S3545/Carroll A04043)
MTA capital projects involve long time horizons. The public should understand what’s going on with these projects – but there’s often little transparency.
This bill will require the MTA capital dashboard to include additional reporting including listing all sources of funding for the project and coding as to whether the project is related to accessibility or resiliency.
Ensuring rider perspectives have votes on the MTA Board (Gounardes S20/Dinowitz A00923)
The MTA Board oversees the operations of the MTA. It is long overdue to ensure that riders’ perspectives have consequence on the Board and to bring greater accountability through voting – particularly given the Board is structurally biased to the Governor.
We’re including legislation to change this makeup by increasing rider representation on the Board with voting power. The bill adds four new voting members recommended by: (1) the New York City Transit Authority Advisory Council, (2) the Metro-North Rail Commuter Council, (3) the Long Island Rail Road Commuter Council, and (4) the MTA New York City Transit Paratransit Advisory Selection Committee. The bill also establishes three non-voting members from the labor organizations representing the majority of the employees employed by (1) the New York City Transit Authority, (2) the Long Island Rail Road, and (3) the Metro-North Commuter Railroad Company.
Ending the requirement that Authorities Budget Office pay its own overhead (Comrie S4416/Carroll A04110)
The Authorities Budget Office (ABO) is a critical oversight body for the MTA. Currently, the ABO is required to pay for its own overhead, despite other state agencies receiving their overhead through the general fund.
We want to reverse this requirement, freeing up these funds for the ABO to hire more staff and grow their capacity to perform their oversight functions. It is estimated that this legislation will result in the ABO being able to hire 10 more full time employees.
Remitting the internet marketplace sales tax (Gounardes S1205/González-Rojas A2895)
From 2011-2017, then-Governor Cuomo stole at least $458 million designated for the MTA during the annual budget process. But there’s a way to safeguard this money by “remitting” the revenue, or moving the funds out of the annual appropriations process and off budget. In fact, many of the dedicated revenue streams for the MTA have been remitted in the past years. But not the internet marketplace sales tax, which is expected to deliver $329 million in 2023 to the MTA.
This bill ensures that this revenue stream gets directly to the MTA by remitting the funds – thereby reducing chances for Executive and legislative tampering. Plus, remitted funds increase the MTA’s credit rating as revenues flow more frequently.
Enabling the MTA to engage in value capture (Comrie S4417/Mamdani A05018)
Transit projects increase the value of surrounding real estate, land, and businesses -- the American Public Transit Association estimates that every $1 spent on transit generates $5 in economic activity, and the Federal Transit Authority reports that transit projects increase nearby property values 30-40%. We can recoup some of that increased value for public transit – what’s called “value capture.”
Existing law (GM 119R) allows the MTA and the City to come to an agreement to establish a value capture process for only one more year. We’re updating this law to make it permanent, remove a potentially harmful process for city tax rolls, and allow two other value capture mechanisms to be on the table.
