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EXCLUSIVE: GOP Public Advocate candidate suggests abolishing the MTA
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PHOTO VIA FACEBOOK
During a telephone interview today, Republican Public Advocate candidate Alex Zablocki made a radical suggestion for reducing or eliminating the fiscal crisis that has plagued the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) and forced huge fare increases and service cuts - get rid of the MTA.
The MTA is not run by New York City or New York State, it is what is called a New York State Public Benefit Corporation, a pseudo-state agency, which is funded by New York State, but has its own board of directors and operates somewhat independently. The governor has some appointees, although not a majority and the rest of the board members are distributed among the various counties served by the agency. Board members receive no financial compensation for their service and have nothing to do with the day to day operations of the agency, the mass transit services of which most don't use. Because of the complex structure of the agency, it's often quite dysfunctional.
"Perhaps we ought to disband the agency and start over," said Zablocki. "Maybe we need to start over and build a new operating authority from the ground up, one that is structured to better represent riders and not so politicized."
He acknowledged that this would not be an immediate answer to the problem, but rather could serve as a long term solution to avoid future cuts and fare increases, which Mayor Bloomberg has said are inevitable, unless the agency invests in capital.
A source close to one of Zablocki's four Democratic opponents called the idea "intriguing," but questioned its practicality.
Zablocki said that he he is by no means married to the idea and suggested several alternatives for use in the short term, most notably creating a transportation fund, to ensure that money that should go to mass transiit really does. Right now all monies collected go into a general fund and are spent on a variety of things.
"They can increase driver license fees and then go spend the money on parks," said Zablocki. "We need a separate transportation fund so that money really goes to improving transportation. I'd be more inclined to support increasing the cost of vehicle registration or driver licenses if I knew that money was earmarked for mass transit and could not be spent elsewhere."
Zablocki said that he is totally against the recommendations in the Ravitch Commission report, namely payroll taxes and tolls on the Harlem and East River Bridges. He blames state legislators for ignoring the needs of the MTA.
"They knew about this for almost a year," said Zablocki. "As they worked to put together the state budget they should have considered the MTA. Instead Albany just went on a spending spree and threw away resources that could have been used to save the MTA."
"If the people who use MTA system want someone to blame for paying more and getting less, they should look to those in the legislature who just passed a budget that increased spending by ten percent, but didn't offer a dime to the MTA."
The MTA came to be in July of 1969 as a combination of three different city rail lines, a bus system and the New York Central and Pennsylvania Railroads. It has subsequently expanded tremendously, including a takeover of the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority and seven private bus lines.
