4 ms·

I don’t understand this criticism. It seems completely normal for a large MTA to use debt financing to fund big projects and not unreasonable at all for 20% of

I don’t understand this criticism. It seems completely normal for a large MTA to use debt financing to fund big projects and not unreasonable at all for 20% of recovered fares to go to paying that debt. I’m sure most of that debt was incurred before the recent spike in rates too so there should be no rush to pay it. Also, I think there’s some fallacious reasoning going on here as if congestion pricing by itself will not help unless timed to exactly coincide with other projects completing. It can as long there’s slack in the system (there is) and it doesn’t need those other projects to be done before it starts helping. The MTA certainly overpays for projects but that is a much easier problem to point out than to fix. It ties into a huge and longstanding corruption/graft scheme, that has in practice a lot of public support, that you can’t just fix overnight.

bradleyjg 3y ago
If they were only over-budget that would be one thing. East side access has made commutes worse for Long Islanders, even those that work on the East Side! How do you spend that much money and make things worse? The MTA isn’t just incompetent, it’s world-historically incompetent. Tens of millions of people’s lives would be significantly better if it was only as corrupt and incompetent as a typical metro system in Southern Europe
bardak 3y ago
Completely agree with everything you said. If anything the biggest complaint I would have is that it seems like they only plan to charge people entering Manhattan and not cars that registered in Manhattan.
lr4444lr 3y ago
The author is not giving you enough context, so your criticism is understandable. The NY MTA has major preexisting infrastructure problems, a big fate evasion problem, a pension obligation problem, and a decreased ridership problem. He's not spelling out how he'd prefer they repurpose the new funding stream, but he's right that the new projects are expensive window dressing on a burning house.
- diogenes4 3y ago
  > big fare evasion problem I just don't buy this. The city could easily afford to just foot the bill with the economic traffic it drives. It's just a non-problem they trot out to work people up.
  - xref 3y ago
    > a big fate evasion problem Ahh, I was imagining a Final Destination scenario
  - lr4444lr 3y ago
    This isn't pennies. Almost $700 million[0]. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/05/nyregion/mta-fare-evasion.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/05/nyregion/mta-fare-evasion... If I apply your logic to all taxes, maybe if none of us paid them, we could expect to see a compensatory rise in economic activity? Doesn't hold water. This is a relatively new problem, and it's costing the city big money.
    - reaperman 3y ago
      The person you're responding to is trying to establish a distinction between fares and taxes. They're saying that the public infrastructure drives economic growth, and posits that the growth in tax base from these projects should be enough to cover fares. Whereas you see all government revenue as going into a single fungible bucket, and some people with your view may believe that recovering $700M of additional fare revenue is both practicable and necessary. It's really more of a question of "who pays", in my opinion. I personally think any revenue system with low overhead is a good one.
aeturnum 3y ago
I agree with you that those are normal things for a public transit agency. I felt like the core of the article was that NYC had ignored an established pattern (outlined in a report[1]) that suggests that, for this to work like they want, they would need to increase non-car ways of getting into and around the city. I also thought the article did a good job of talking about how the legally relevant metrics are focused on financial targets rather than transit targets. I do think this kind of article is hard to write clearly, but I do not think what you said is in conversation with the content of the article. I can see why they are worried that congestion pricing must fund new capital projects (i.e. expansion) instead of the existing system. You didn't mention that in your critique and I'm curious because it feels like a central point of the article. I also do not think this article was exactly criticizing the MTA for overpaying? More than it was noting that it HAD overpaid to situate the reader as to the MTA's current financial situation. [1] https://rpa.org/work/reports/congestion-pricing-in-nyc#key-findings https://rpa.org/work/reports/congestion-pricing-in-nyc#key-f...
- crazygringo 3y ago
  > for this to work like they want, they would need to increase non-car ways of getting into and around the city NYC already has the most non-car ways of anywhere in the country by a long shot. Subways, trains, buses. Taxis, Ubers, CitiBike. What on earth more improvements do they want?
  - fragmede 3y ago
    > Subways, trains, buses. Taxis, Ubers, CitiBike By a long shot? Those, or an equivalent, are pretty standard in all major cities. (Lime/Spin rental scooters are in the same category as rental bicycles, imo)
    - Jcowell 3y ago
      what other city has 24 hour non stop service for subways ? The Subway ‘s operation is not standard in all major cities of the country.
    - 3y ago

bradleyjg 3y ago

If they were only over-budget that would be one thing. East side access has made commutes worse for Long Islanders, even those that work on the East Side! How do you spend that much money and make things worse? The MTA isn’t just incompetent, it’s world-historically incompetent. Tens of millions of people’s lives would be significantly better if it was only as corrupt and incompetent as a typical metro system in Southern Europe

bardak 3y ago

Completely agree with everything you said. If anything the biggest complaint I would have is that it seems like they only plan to charge people entering Manhattan and not cars that registered in Manhattan.

lr4444lr 3y ago

The author is not giving you enough context, so your criticism is understandable. The NY MTA has major preexisting infrastructure problems, a big fate evasion problem, a pension obligation problem, and a decreased ridership problem. He's not spelling out how he'd prefer they repurpose the new funding stream, but he's right that the new projects are expensive window dressing on a burning house.

diogenes4 3y ago
> big fare evasion problem I just don't buy this. The city could easily afford to just foot the bill with the economic traffic it drives. It's just a non-problem they trot out to work people up.
- xref 3y ago
  > a big fate evasion problem Ahh, I was imagining a Final Destination scenario
- lr4444lr 3y ago
  This isn't pennies. Almost $700 million[0]. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/05/nyregion/mta-fare-evasion.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/05/nyregion/mta-fare-evasion... If I apply your logic to all taxes, maybe if none of us paid them, we could expect to see a compensatory rise in economic activity? Doesn't hold water. This is a relatively new problem, and it's costing the city big money.
  - reaperman 3y ago
    The person you're responding to is trying to establish a distinction between fares and taxes. They're saying that the public infrastructure drives economic growth, and posits that the growth in tax base from these projects should be enough to cover fares. Whereas you see all government revenue as going into a single fungible bucket, and some people with your view may believe that recovering $700M of additional fare revenue is both practicable and necessary. It's really more of a question of "who pays", in my opinion. I personally think any revenue system with low overhead is a good one.

aeturnum 3y ago

I agree with you that those are normal things for a public transit agency. I felt like the core of the article was that NYC had ignored an established pattern (outlined in a report[1]) that suggests that, for this to work like they want, they would need to increase non-car ways of getting into and around the city. I also thought the article did a good job of talking about how the legally relevant metrics are focused on financial targets rather than transit targets. I do think this kind of article is hard to write clearly, but I do not think what you said is in conversation with the content of the article. I can see why they are worried that congestion pricing must fund new capital projects (i.e. expansion) instead of the existing system. You didn't mention that in your critique and I'm curious because it feels like a central point of the article. I also do not think this article was exactly criticizing the MTA for overpaying? More than it was noting that it HAD overpaid to situate the reader as to the MTA's current financial situation. [1] https://rpa.org/work/reports/congestion-pricing-in-nyc#key-findings https://rpa.org/work/reports/congestion-pricing-in-nyc#key-f...

crazygringo 3y ago
> for this to work like they want, they would need to increase non-car ways of getting into and around the city NYC already has the most non-car ways of anywhere in the country by a long shot. Subways, trains, buses. Taxis, Ubers, CitiBike. What on earth more improvements do they want?
- fragmede 3y ago
  > Subways, trains, buses. Taxis, Ubers, CitiBike By a long shot? Those, or an equivalent, are pretty standard in all major cities. (Lime/Spin rental scooters are in the same category as rental bicycles, imo)
  - Jcowell 3y ago
    what other city has 24 hour non stop service for subways ? The Subway ‘s operation is not standard in all major cities of the country.
  - 3y ago