6 ms·

Are you sure that NYC has an annual budget of $78B? That's a humongous number for any city, and an outrageous number for a city with a Subway system that is (su

by vijucat 12y ago

Are you sure that NYC has an annual budget of $78B? That's a humongous number for any city, and an outrageous number for a city with a Subway system that is (supposedly still) in a state of disrepair.

cjhopman 12y ago
It is that high. http://www.nyc.gov/html/omb/downloads/pdf/tech2_15.pdf http://www.nyc.gov/html/omb/downloads/pdf/tech2_15.pdf
ceejayoz 12y ago
That's around $10k/resident (and the city gets immense amount of non-resident visitors). Given things like public schools, transport, fire/police, etc. it doesn't seem particularly high to me.
scott_s 12y ago
"Disrepair" is a strong word. There are problems, but most of the time, it runs smoothly for me. It's an enormous piece of infrastructure that mostly works. That's no small feat.
- SonicSoul 12y ago
  it's been progressively worse. lately it seems like you have a 60% chance of delays to or from work, and forget about knowing which subway will run on the weekend. http://jalopnik.com/you-are-not-insane-the-new-york-city-subway-is-getting-1687817007 http://jalopnik.com/you-are-not-insane-the-new-york-city-sub...
allengeorge 12y ago
78B does seem fairly large. For comparison: NYC (pop. 8.4M): 78B Los Angeles (pop. 3.8M): 8.1B USD Toronto (pop. 2.8M): 10B CDN Chicago (pop. 2.7M): 9B USD I expected the city's budget to be in the double-digit billions, but in the 40 - 50 billion range. I wonder if it's something in how the headline numbers are calculated. Toronto splits out its operating and capital budgets, and there are some services like social housing that are (used to be?) cost-shared between the provincial and municipal government. That said, most people just don't realize (or take for granted!) all the services that cities provide: police, fire, paramedics, garbage/sewer, water, roads and public transit - many of which are highly labour intensive.
- hudibras 12y ago
  > I wonder if it's something in how the headline numbers are calculated. This is correct. NYC is basically sui generis for American cities. As examples, there's essentially no county government and the school system is part of the city government. The school system alone accounts for $20B of the $78B and over 100,000 of the 360,000 city employees...AND those school numbers don't include the $900M for the city-funded-and-operated 4-year university system.
czinck 12y ago
Part of the reason the subway is so messed up is it's run by the state, not the city, as part of the general state-wide public transit. The city/state relationship is messed up, the debacle of the subways shutting down for only 6" of snow was because the governor mandated it without talking to the mayor.
hudibras 12y ago
The $78B budget for the city doesn't include the transit system. MTA's budget is $14B/year, with $7B of that going to NYCTA (the part of MTA which runs the subways and the city's buses). http://web.mta.info/mta/budget/pdf/MTA%202015%20Adopted%20Budget%20February%20Financial%20Plan%202015-2018.pdf http://web.mta.info/mta/budget/pdf/MTA%202015%20Adopted%20Bu...

by vijucat 12y ago

cjhopman 12y ago

It is that high. http://www.nyc.gov/html/omb/downloads/pdf/tech2_15.pdf http://www.nyc.gov/html/omb/downloads/pdf/tech2_15.pdf

ceejayoz 12y ago

That's around $10k/resident (and the city gets immense amount of non-resident visitors). Given things like public schools, transport, fire/police, etc. it doesn't seem particularly high to me.

scott_s 12y ago

"Disrepair" is a strong word. There are problems, but most of the time, it runs smoothly for me. It's an enormous piece of infrastructure that mostly works. That's no small feat.

SonicSoul 12y ago
it's been progressively worse. lately it seems like you have a 60% chance of delays to or from work, and forget about knowing which subway will run on the weekend. http://jalopnik.com/you-are-not-insane-the-new-york-city-subway-is-getting-1687817007 http://jalopnik.com/you-are-not-insane-the-new-york-city-sub...

allengeorge 12y ago

78B does seem fairly large. For comparison: NYC (pop. 8.4M): 78B Los Angeles (pop. 3.8M): 8.1B USD Toronto (pop. 2.8M): 10B CDN Chicago (pop. 2.7M): 9B USD I expected the city's budget to be in the double-digit billions, but in the 40 - 50 billion range. I wonder if it's something in how the headline numbers are calculated. Toronto splits out its operating and capital budgets, and there are some services like social housing that are (used to be?) cost-shared between the provincial and municipal government. That said, most people just don't realize (or take for granted!) all the services that cities provide: police, fire, paramedics, garbage/sewer, water, roads and public transit - many of which are highly labour intensive.

hudibras 12y ago
> I wonder if it's something in how the headline numbers are calculated. This is correct. NYC is basically sui generis for American cities. As examples, there's essentially no county government and the school system is part of the city government. The school system alone accounts for $20B of the $78B and over 100,000 of the 360,000 city employees...AND those school numbers don't include the $900M for the city-funded-and-operated 4-year university system.

czinck 12y ago

Part of the reason the subway is so messed up is it's run by the state, not the city, as part of the general state-wide public transit. The city/state relationship is messed up, the debacle of the subways shutting down for only 6" of snow was because the governor mandated it without talking to the mayor.

hudibras 12y ago

The $78B budget for the city doesn't include the transit system. MTA's budget is $14B/year, with $7B of that going to NYCTA (the part of MTA which runs the subways and the city's buses). http://web.mta.info/mta/budget/pdf/MTA%202015%20Adopted%20Budget%20February%20Financial%20Plan%202015-2018.pdf http://web.mta.info/mta/budget/pdf/MTA%202015%20Adopted%20Bu...