MTA Leadership Discusses Progress, Challenges of its Mass Transit System

Metro-North commuters in Westchester and Putnam counties can expect a series of improvements, including making the railroad more resilient to flooding in the coming years, but should also brace for a 4 percent fare increase in 2025.

Those were two of the issues that were raised that would impact residents of New York City’s northern suburbs during a recent roundtable held by Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) brass with local media outlets. The Oct. 25 event at the West Farms Bus Depot in the Bronx was a wide-ranging discussion on matters impacting the MTA and riders on New York City subways and buses and on Metro-North and Long Island Rail Road commuter trains.

MTA Chairman Janno Lieber said the authority’s $55 billion capital program for 2020-24 is expiring at the end of the year and it is required to enact a new capital program, which was approved at a recent MTA board meeting. The capital program for the next five years calls for $68 billion in spending but there appears to be a nearly $30 billion gap between what the MTA has available and what it needs, Lieber said.

He said the state legislature during its 2025 session, which begins in January, will have to decide how to fund the capital program, a vital necessity because the region is heavily dependent on mass transit. Much of it will be shoring up MTA infrastructure to ensure millions of riders can commute to and from their destination safely and on time.

“Everybody loves a new subway line or a new subway station, or a new, new, new, and there’s room for some of that, but we must invest in the system to make sure it doesn’t degrade,” Lieber said.

The MTA is planning significant investment in New York City, such as making 60 subway stations and six commuter railroad stations ADA accessible, but there are plans for Metro-North as well. Catherine Rinaldi, president of Metro-North, said deteriorating platforms at six stations, mainly on the lower portion of the Harlem line, are going to be upgraded.

There will also be modernized signals and track and improving infrastructure such as bridges, culverts and drainage, Rinaldi said.

A major challenge for Metro-North is preventing the flooding of its tracks on the Hudson line. During Ida in 2021, there was a significant mud slide on the Hudson line in Yonkers and a similar problem during a storm last October in Briarcliff Manor, curtailing service for days.

“The projection is the Hudson line will be fully under water in 20 to 30 years,” Lieber said. “So you’ve got to do something.”

“You’ve got the river right up against the tracks,” Rinaldi also explained. “In some spots it’s literally right up against the tracks. You have pretty steep slopes on the other side, so you had mud coming down and tidal surge coming up.”

This is all in addition to ongoing improvement plans for the “train shed” that Metro-North trains pass under when pulling into and leaving Grand Central Station, the tunnel between 57^th and 97^th streets and the Grand Central viaduct, which spans from north of 97^th Street until trains cross over into the Bronx, she said.

Lieber said the MTA has slowed some of its systemwide capital improvement projects until there is a resolution regarding the future of the controversial congestion pricing plan. In June, Gov. Kathy Hochul placed an indefinite pause on congestion pricing citing a burden on lower- and middle-class families.

The proposed $15 toll to enter Manhattan in a vehicle south of 60^th Street, except those traveling on the FDR Drive and West Side Highway, was projected to have raised $1 billion annually and would have gone toward MTA’s capital plan.

Lieber said he and other MTA officials are hopeful that the governor will soon lift the pause. He contended that most people will not be affected by the toll, as 90 percent of those who head into the Central Business District of Manhattan don’t drive. Furthermore, it will help the environment and allow first responders to reach their destinations more quickly on emergency calls.

“The business community supports (congestion pricing) because it’s such an economic drag on us that plumbers and tradesmen are spending hours sitting in traffic,” Lieber said.

To help keep up with operating costs, Lieber said the MTA will be following a recommended 4 percent fare increases every two years. The next one is expected sometime next year.

State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, however, in an Oct. 23 report expressed concern for MTA’s finances. After an infusion of state money last year, which resulted in a brief period of financial stability, the MTA faces projected budget gaps of $211 million this year. That could balloon to $652 million by 2028.

DiNapoli’s report cited overall MTA ridership in June at about 70 percent of pre-pandemic levels. It also lagged over the summer.

DiNapoli’s report stated that Long Island Rail Road’s weekday service is still down around 20 percent compared to before the pandemic with Metro-North under that level.

The ridership issue is muddling the MTA’s fiscal picture, according to the report.

“A year ago, the MTA was looking forward to a period of solid fiscal health, but its financial condition has quickly turned from stable back to uncertain,” DiNapoli said in a statement accompanying the report. “Paid ridership is not coming back as fast as the MTA hoped. With farebox and tax revenues down, a pause on congestion pricing and other financial risks, significant operating budget gaps could again be on the horizon. This is a very real and troubling possibility.”

However, Lieber said the comptroller’s report doesn’t reflect the latest ridership trends. He said since Labor Day, the commuter railroads have seen an influx of passengers, with the Long Island Rail Road at 89 percent of ridership in September compared to 2019 and Metro-North a few percent behind.

New York City subway service was at about 80 percent of pre-pandemic figures and city buses are at about 90 percent, he said. Rinaldi added that weekend Metro-North ridership has exceeded 2019 levels for a few weeks, forcing the railroad to add or lengthen trains.

Lieber expects those figures to continue to rise with the growing trend of reverse commuting.

“A lot of that is because we grow, we grow services, and one of the fastest growing components of service, both before and after COVID, has been reverse commuting from the Bronx up to Westchester and Connecticut,” Lieber said.

Also, many suburban communities have been emphasizing transit-oriented development in or near their downtowns, which is anticipated to continue to grow ridership, he said.

The MTA has been cracking down on fare evasion, which is estimated to result in more than $700 million annually in lost revenues, Lieber mentioned. He said there is a fundamental lack of fairness about habitual fare-beating.

“Why should people who are paying taxes have to bail out people who are beating the rules?” Lieber asked.

Despite the challenges ahead, Lieber said the New York metropolitan area would not exist as it is known without mass transit, particularly because more than half the residents of the city and the suburbs do not own a car.

“We know this system, it’s an engine of equality, it makes New York possible,” he said.