Norwood News

The MTA is taking advantage of the legal requirement to balance its operating budget to secure more money for pursuing their wasteful and unnecessary projects.

The payroll tax proposal alone is sufficient to prevent a fare increase, subway and bus line eliminations, and the other proposed cuts.  Even though the payroll tax has considerable political support, MTA chief Elliot Sander, insisted on tolls for the Harlem and East River bridges as well.

Smarting over the defeat of congestion pricing, the MTA sees a great opportunity to grab control of the bridges and to extract more money for continuing business as usual: computerized trains, lavish station renovations in wealthy neighborhoods, more benefits for consultants and executives, enhancing the Manhattan skyline with a soaring Fulton Transit Center, new luxury headquarters on the West Side, etc. While tolling would benefit the wealthy areas of Manhattan by reducing traffic and pollution, working class residents from the outer boroughs would be paying and receiving nothing!  Last spring, I suggested legally dedicating revenues from congestion pricing for subway projects in the outer boroughs. Even though the idea was well-received, the feckless Bronx politicians voted to give the MTA a blank check!

Tolling the bridges creates another problem. Everyone agrees that it would add many new riders to an already overwhelmed transit system. During the congestion pricing debate, no realistic and comprehensive plan for the subway enhancement was ever developed. Instead, the MTA hurriedly put forth a massive express bus expansion plan. In 2008, federal money would have covered it, but now the Ravitch Commission proposed that revenues from the tolls would pay for it — a classic case of placing the cart before the horse! Common sense dictates that the system must be enhanced before tolling begins and there is no money to fund express bus expansion.

Comptroller William Thompson proposed a tax increase based on the weight of cars which would place the burden on everyone, not just residents of the outer boroughs. Any revenue from this idea, however, must be legally dedicated to projects which have strong public support.

The core of the problem is the MTA itself. It has total control of mass transit and pursues policies which most people oppose. Councilman Tony Avella has proposed a solution in his City Council Resolution #44: the city must control its own subways and buses. If the City Council had real power over New York’s mass transit, ideas such as eliminating subway and bus lines, closing token booths, one person train control and wasteful projects such as the Fulton Transit Center would never see the light of day.

It’s necessary for the people of the Bronx to get together and to join their fellow citizens in the outer boroughs in fighting for city control over its subways and buses.

John Rozankowski
Bedford Park