I found this amusing since I don't live in Staten Island. I don't know why ANYBODY lives there anyway.
The MTA's priorities
Staten island Advance - Wednesday, October 06, 2004
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, claiming yet another huge budget deficit, is embarked on a program that will result in commuters across the five boroughs and in the suburbs paying more money for less in service. Most of the MTA's customers in the metropolitan will pay a little more and get a little less service. But commuters on Staten Island will be paying a lot more if the MTA has its way, and they never had nearly enough in the way of public transit service in the first place. And now they are being told by the MTA not to expect things to get better any time soon.
On Monday, top MTA officials were summoned to a special public hearing of the Assembly Standing Committee on Corporations, Authorities and Commissions at Sea View Hospital Rehabilitation Center and Home to answer pointed questions from lawmakers and interested citizens. The committee, chaired by Assemblyman Richard Brodsky of Westchester, plans to conduct a series of such hearings around the metropolitan area in advance of the MTA's proposed schedule of fare and toll hikes and service cuts. The MTA officials probably would rather not have attended the hearing because all they had was bad news to tell, and they were forced to lay it all out in the borough that the MTA has effectively ignored for decades. They were also forced to concede that they have no plans to improve service on Staten Island or give Island commuters a break on fares.
Staten Island residents who commute to Manhattan on express buses are going to be hardest hit, with the base one-way fare jumping $1 to $6. Only a couple of years ago, the fare was $3. It seems that the MTA views providing express bus service on Staten Island as a tiresome waste of money that it would much rather spend on more exciting, high-profile projects -- projects that will be praised by MTA executives' friends and neighbors in Manhattan and Westchester.
Last summer, when the MTA announced this latest round of fare increases, MTA executive director Katherine Lapp said the latest fare hike for 37,000 daily express bus riders would generate $19 million and warned that without the increase, "we would largely eliminate this service." She added, "This is by far the most expensive service that we provide." Ms. Lapp claimed that express buses bring in a far smaller ratio of farebox revenue to operating costs than local buses or rail lines. At Monday's hearing, New York City Transit President Larry Reuter asserted that express bus fares return just 31 percent of the cost, and the rest of the MTA's system averages 53.7 percent. That's always been the MTA's complaint about express buses and these officials are sticking to the party line.
But a lot of people, including us, find it suspicious. After all, the MTA has been known to cook the books to suit its agenda on more than one occasion. For one thing, it's hard to believe that a bus full of people (some standing) who paid $5 to get aboard doesn't even return one third of what it costs the New York City Transit to operate that bus. For another, some skeptics insist that the MTA doesn't include certain capital costs involved in running the subways, Metro North and the Long Island Railroad, so the fare-to-cost ratios for those conveyances come out higher than that for express buses in the MTA's calculations. Despite the claims of Ms. Lapp and Mr. Reuter, building, maintaining all the equipment and operating electric-powered rail lines would seem to be a considerably more costly proposition than simply buying, maintaining and running a bus which travels on city streets.
And for another thing, MTA officials keep talking about express buses as if they expected them to make money for the agency -- a standard that the MTA certainly would not apply to, say, the subways or Metro North. The MTA is a public authority with a solemn responsibility to provide safe, reliable and convenient transportation for all the people in the region. It is not supposed to be a money-making enterprise.
It's been only too clear for a long time that the MTA doesn't want to be in the express bus business, as evidenced by Ms. Lapp's and Mr. Reuter's statements. Remember the MTA balked at providing express bus service on the South Shore at all. Its unwillingness to provide an obviously needed public transit service to South Shore residents was so outrageous that Staten Island lawmakers banded together and passed a bill to force the MTA to establish four South Shore express bus routes. The MTA whined, predictably, and Gov. George Pataki vetoed that bill, but ordered the MTA to provide two South Shore routes in a compromise agreement with Island officials.
Perhaps the strongest evidence of the MTA's unwillingness to provide adequate mass transit on Staten Island, however, is the MTA's continued foot-dragging on a third bus depot here. That stalling has gone on for two decades. The MTA finally relented and committed to the third depot in Charleston a couple of years ago, but funding for the much-needed, long-overdue project has been withdrawn from the MTA's budget several times. Mr. Reuter reported at the Assembly hearing on Monday that $15 million that was included in the proposed MTA five-year capital budget would pay only for the design of the depot, but not the actual construction. That means the construction funding is at least five years off....and five years is probably optimistic, given the MTA's track record.
Assemblyman John Lavelle demanded to know, "When do you think that we'll see this new bus depot?"
Mr. Reuter answered, "It will have to be sometime after 2009."
"Have to be"?
No, that's the way the MTA wants it to be. The MTA seems to have been able to maintain full funding for other, far less necessary projects in its capital planning. The bus depot always seems to be expendable.
Community Board 1 Chairman Joseph Carroll asked Ms. Lapp to direct the MTA board to "do the third depot on Staten Island to bring them up to some level of equity" before moving ahead with other, less necessary projects. Ms. Lapp has the power to do that, but, of course, no such commitment was forthcoming from her. The truth is that the MTA has always made providing adequate transportation infrastructure to serve Staten Island commuters its lowest priority.
The MTA can't provide the level express bus service that Staten Island needs because it doesn't have the South Shore depot needed to house and maintain the extra buses. And why doesn't the MTA have that third depot? Because the agency keeps postponing spending the money necessary to build it.
At one point in the hearing, Assemblyman Michael Cusick asked Mr. Reuter point blank, "Is there a plan to bring more express bus service to Staten Island?"
Mr. Reuter replied, "Basically, no, at this time, because we are out of depot capacity."
Convenient, isn't it?
No depot, no need for the MTA to spend more money on express buses for Staten Island riders. And no hope for desperate commuters for the foreseeable future.
The MTA continues to blame budget problems for this situation and claim it can't do anything. We think Staten Island officials ought to start putting the blame where it belongs -- on the MTA's priorities.
Rep. Vito Fossella has threatened to use his influence to block federal funding for the long-sought Second Avenue subway line -- which is an MTA priority -- unless the agency starts doing a better job here. Judging from what was said at this hearing, the MTA has no intention of doing that. Indeed, MTA officials even seem to resent the very suggestion.
