The chairman of New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority and several board members Wednesday called for a full-court press on Albany officials to fully fund its four-year capital program.
The MTA's proposed $32 billion plan has a $15.2 billion shortfall. A state review board two months ago rejected it without prejudice.
"There's healthy tension in the dialogue and that's what should be. But the trillion-dollar asset issue blows everyone out of the water in terms of need," Thomas Prendergast, citing the MTA's estimated impact on the regional economy, told reporters after the monthly board meeting in midtown Manhattan.
The MTA is one of the largest municipal issuers, with about $34.4 billion of debt.
Gene Russianoff, an attorney and lead spokesman with the Straphangers Campaign subway ridership lobbying group, urged the board to lean on Gov. Andrew Cuomo for adequate funding.
"Keep your eye on the man behind the curtain," he said.
Prendergast spoke after the authority's chief financial officer, Robert Foran, envisioned a deeper outyear deficit and two days the MTA announced its proposed 4% increase in fares and tolls over two years.
Foran pegged the authority's projected 2018 deficit at $322 million, or $60 million deeper than envisioned in July.
According to Foran, re-estimates and other changes that added to the outyear shortfall included lower aid projections, higher debt-service, overtime and health costs, and increases in safety and service investments. He also cited additional operational and maintenance needs and new technological investments.
Foran also cited the need for full capital program funding. Other challenges, he said, included avoiding "further legislative erosion" of payroll mobility tax revenue; further cost controls to avoid what he called backsliding, and addressing "chronic cost issues," such as workers' compensation, claims and overtime.
Board members talked about the need for a dedicated funding source.
"Without it, we will have more bonding, more interest and more pressure on service and fares," said board member Andrew Albert. The state legislature enacted the payroll mobility tax as part of a 2009 aid package. So far it has withstood several legal challenges, notably from Long Island officials. Charles Moerdler, who made tabloid headlines two days earlier with his rant about oversized backpacks on subway trains, called on the MTA to think more creatively.
"We have some very good people here, but they don't like to rock boats. I do," he said in an interview. "We can't keep thinking within the box. I want to see planning that relates to five to 10 years from now."
The board also approved 1% fare increases for Metro-North Railroad travel within Connecticut, which that state's legislature required. The MTA, which operates New York City's subway system, Metro-North and Long Island railroads and several inter-borough bridges and tunnels, plans public hearings next month elsewhere throughout the region on the proposed fare and toll hikes. The board could modify the proposals before voting on them in January.
Under one subway proposal, the base fare rises by 25 cents, and the bonus amount goes up from 5% to 11% when putting $5.50 or more on a MetroCard. Under the other, the base fare for cash, single-ride tickets and pay-per-ride MetroCards would remain, but the bonus for putting $5 or more on a MetroCard is eliminated.
In both proposals, the cost of a 30-day unlimited ride MetroCard increases by $4.50 and the cost of a seven-day unlimited ride MetroCard by $1.
Trips across the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge between Staten Island and Brooklyn could rise to $16 for non-E-ZPass users under one scenario.
