4 THE QUEENS COURIER • JULY 2, 2020 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM
Massive MTA budget crunch may spell ‘doomsday’ sequel for subways
BY ROBERT POZARYCKI
rpozarycki@qns.com
@QNS
Facing the eff ects of the “Great
Recession” more than a decade ago, the
MTA announced a “doomsday budget”
that included service cuts which aff ected
hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers.
It would take years for the MTA to
climb out of its budget hole and reverse
some of the changes they deemed necessary
Transit advocates plead with Schumer to get MTA fi nancial aid
BY MARK HALLUM
mhallum@schnepsmedia.com
@QNS
Some of New York’s most vocal transit
advocates want Senator Charles
Schumer to pull out all the stops to deliver
emergency funding to the Metropolitan
Transportation Authority in its hour of
need and bring the HEROES Act to the
fl oor for a vote.
In a letter, a coalition of organizations
such as the Riders Alliance and New York
Lawyers for the Public Interest is telling
Schumer that now is the time to exercise
his authority as the Senate Minority
Leader to deliver the $3.9 billion promised
to the MTA in the stimulus package
that supports the operating costs of the
nations largest transit network.
Th e MTA announced recently that
not only is it facing a $10 billion defi cit
from COVID-19, but also, the $3.8 billion
in federal aid provided to them in the
CARES Act in March will be exhausted by
the end of June.
“Aft er a devastating spring when New
York became the global pandemic epicenter,
our city has only just begun to recover
from COVID. Meanwhile, we look anxiously
at surging infection rates nationwide
and try to prevent an imminent second
wave here,” the coalition letter to
Schumer stated. “Th e collapse of the public
transit system our region depends
on would knock us back on our heels at
the worst possible moment. New York’s
entire recovery would falter. With more
than half of essential workers dependent
on public transit, our heroic emergency
response capability would dissipate.”
Th e MTA has expressed desperation for
the state of their fi nances, announcing in
their June meeting that they would need
to put their $51 billion capital plan to
modernize the New York City Transit system
on hold until better days arrive. Th e
defi cit stems from a massive loss in ridership,
reduced by over 90 percent over the
course of New York’s most diffi cult phase
of the epidemic yet.
“Th e MTA is facing fi nancial catastrophe
and we urgently need action from the
U.S. Senate to deliver an additional $3.9
billion in funding. We thank the advocates
for their support,” MTA spokesperson
Aaron Donovan said.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch
McConnell has refused to bring the
HEROES Act to the fl oor for a vote despite
pressure from states. Th e Republican senator
from Kentucky referred to it as a
“blue state bailout,” and elected offi cials
such as Governor Andrew Cuomo have
shot back accusing him of putting politics
above good government during the crisis.
Noted by transit offi cials as well as the
advocates listed below is the fact that
the New York City metro area contributed
up to a tenth of the national GDP, and
with subways, buses and trains being the
engine behind this productivity, funding
is a critical investment.
“We urge you to do everything in your
signifi cant power to bring more aid to the
MTA now. Th e agency’s need has never
been more dire nor its importance greater.
Time is quickly running out,” the letter
from advocates concluded.
Schumer’s offi ce did not immediately
respond to a request for comment.
Also signing on to the letter were leaders
such as Betsy Plum, executive director of
the Riders Alliance; McGregor Smyth of the
New York Lawyers for the Public Interest;
Julie Tighe of the New York League of
Conservation Voters; Jaqi Cohen of NYPIRG
Straphangers Campaign; Lisa Daglian of the
Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to
the Metropolitan Transportation Authority;
Th omas K. Wright of the Regional Plan
Association; John Kaehny of Reinvent
Albany; Eric McClure of StreetsPAC; Danny
Harris of Transportation Alternatives; and
Nick Sifuentes of the Tri-State Transportation
Campaign.
File photo
Photo via Wikimedia Commons
The V train, shown in this 2010 photo, was a
casualty of the “doomsday budget” cuts the MTA
enacted more than a decade ago.
to get through the crisis.
Still, some of the biggest reminders of the
“doomsday budget” are present, especially
within the subway system. But now the
MTA is facing a fi scal calamity even greater
than the “Great Recession” that precipitated
the apocalyptic cuts of 2009-10.
MTA Chair and CEO Pat Foye said at
the authority’s June 24 board meeting that
the authority is facing a “four-alarm fi re”
of economic challenges brought on by the
COVID-19 pandemic.
Only a week earlier, during an amNY
webinar, Foye ruled out a pandemic-related
fare hike while acknowledging the
tremendous fi scal challenges facing the
MTA. But on June 24, as the authority
looks at a $10 billion budget defi cit, one
board member suggested that every possible
remedy to the crisis is on the table
— including a fare hike, service cuts and
administrative changes.
Th e MTA is also seeking billions of dollars
in economic relief from Washington,
D.C. Th ey’ve already received billions
in previous COVID-19 economic relief
packages out of Capitol Hill, but Foye
noted that additional federal resources
are needed to help the MTA recover from
the pandemic.
Th e extra funds, included in the
HEROES Act bill stalled in the Senate,
could also help the MTA avoid making
cuts similar to those made in the “doomsday
budget” of 2009-10. Back then, the
biggest cuts impacted, to little surprise,
the subway system. Two subway lines, the
V and W, were eliminated.
Only the W train returned aft er the
fi rst phase of the Second Avenue Subway
opened in 2016, and the Q train — which,
in the doomsday budget, had replaced
the W between midtown Manhattan and
Astoria, Queens — was rerouted to the
new line. Meanwhile, the V train, created
in 2001 to run between the Lower East
Side and Forest Hills, Queens, remains on
the shelf.
Th e doomsday budget replaced the line
with the current M train route from Forest
Hills, through Manhattan and Brooklyn,
up to Middle Village, Queens. Initially,
the MTA had wanted to eliminate the
M entirely and replace it with the V, but
opted instead to retain the M and shelf the
V on the redesigned route.
Th e M logo was also changed from
brown to orange to refl ect the change. Th e
new route also ended traditional weekday
M service from Middle Village into Lower
Manhattan and Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. Th e
doomsday budget also truncated the G
line, the only subway route that doesn’t
cross the East River into Manhattan.
Before the cuts of 2009, the G train ran
from Brooklyn to Forest Hills, but the
doomsday budget permanently made
the Court Square station in Long
Island City the G train’s last northbound
stop. Th e
M T A
h a d
also wanted to eliminate the Z train,
the sporadic, skip-stop, rush-hour
service running concurrent with the J
train on weekdays.
However, the authority spared the
Z when fi nalizing its doomsday budget.
Much has changed in the 11 years
since the MTA enacted the budget cuts.
As the economy improved, the authority
reversed service reductions on other
routes and even increased capacity as
more riders joined the system.
Th e G train, for example, went up in car
length, from four cars to six. It’s hard to
say how many cuts the MTA would need
to make if they don’t get additional help
during the current fi scal calamity.
But one statistic, in comparing the
doomsday budget of 2009-10, should
give New Yorkers pause: the size of the
MTA’s budget defi cit. Th e doomsday cuts
were made to help address an immediate
$343 million budget shortfall and a longer
term, $1.2 billion gap. Both were hard, yet
manageable numbers.
But that’s a drop in the bucket compared
to the $10 billion abyss that the MTA is currently
staring at. One could make the argument
that there may not be enough service
cuts to make a serious dent in that crater.
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