Mayor Should Take Control Of NYC's Subways, Council Speaker Says

NEW YORK — City Council Speaker Corey Johnson laid out a detailed plan Tuesday for the city to take charge of its subways and buses in what would be a radical restructuring of public transit governance.

At the center of the plan, outlined in Johnson's inaugural State of the City address and a 104-page report, is Big Apple Transit, a new entity controlled by the mayor that would take over the operation of the subway and bus systems from the state-controlled Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

Doing so would make the city the master of the transit network on which millions of New Yorkers rely to get to work and school each day — power it currently lacks under the MTA's labyrinthine structure, Johnson argued.

"Today New Yorkers are abandoning the system and getting into Ubers and Lyfts. Tomorrow it’s U-Hauls, and the businesses will follow," Johnson said in his speech at LaGuardia Community College. "Why would they stay? We have to do something."

Johnson repeated his support for congestion pricing — a plan to toll vehicles entering Manhattan's core — as a new revenue stream for public transit, which Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio have also embraced. The City Council will pass a such a plan if state lawmakers don't get it done this year, Johnson pledged.

The speaker punctuated his speech with stories of transit failures disrupting riders' lives, such as the Hunter College student who missed his graduation because he got stuck on an E train. He also highlighted the MTA's confusing structure, suggesting that efforts at reform are "band-aid solutions to mortal wounds."

"The confusion was built in so the public wouldn't know who to blame," Johnson said.

Johnson unveiled the ambitious proposal as he mulls a run for mayor in 2021. It's uncertain whether it will gain enough support to become a reality. But an aide to Cuomo — the MTA's current master — wasn't buying it.

"The City already owns the New York City transit system," Dani Lever, the Democratic governor's communications director, said in a statement. The city indeed owns the subways and leases them to the New York City Transit Authority, an MTA subsidiary that operates the system.

De Blasio's press secretary, Eric Phillips, said a city takeover is worth discussing but would take years to achieve at best. The Democratic mayor is "focused on immediate actions to fix the broken subway system," Phillips said.

"Our subways are in the middle of a crisis that needs an immediate solution. The Mayor stands with millions of riders depending on action right now," Phillips said in a statement.

Under Johnson's plan, Big Apple Transit would subsume the NYC Transit Authority and other MTA subsidiaries that currently run the subways, buses and the city's nine bridges and tunnels, along with about two thirds of the MTA's central operations.

The agency would be overseen by a board comprising public transit riders and a new "Mobility Czar" in City Hall, whose portfolio would also include the Department of Transportation and the Taxi and Limousine Commission.

The system could be funded by increased taxes on corporations and a share of sales taxes as well as congestion pricing, Johnson said. He emphasized the need to keep fares down, even suggesting that they could eventually be eliminated.

"The riders are not the only ones who benefit from our system, and they shouldn’t bear so much of the responsibility for keeping it afloat," he said.

Going beyond the subways, Johnson called for the city to create a master plan for its streets every five years that looks holistically at how they should be used. The city should break its "car culture" and focus on improvements that will help pedestrians, cyclists and buses, he said.

Having a comprehensive plan would also allow the city to present a clear big picture to neighborhoods where it redesigns streets, Johnson said, noting that such projects have received intense pushback in some places.

"It will allow us to understand how neighborhood-specific changes fit into a plan for the larger and greater good," Johnson said.

Johnson's plan won praise from former MTA chairman Joe Lhota, who proposed mayoral control of the subway when he ran for mayor in 2013. Centralizing control of the city's school system and its public housing and transit police took years, he said, but the wait has been "well worth it."

"It’s refreshing to see someone stand before the people and say 'hold me responsible, hold me accountable,'" Lhota said in an email.

Johnson's proposal has started a valuable conversation, though focusing on “sustainable, reliable and long-term funding” for the public transit system is “the most important step,” said Lisa Daglian, the executive director of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA.

"Riders will say, 'I don’t care who’s in charge as long as you fix my commute,'" Daglian said. "And that’s why the conversation is so important."

But the idea likely won't ever become a reality in part because of the massive financial obligations that would come with a city takeover, such as long-term debt and pension costs, said Larry Penner, a transportation advocate and historian who worked for more than three decades at the Federal Transit Administration.

"It’s a nice public relations gimmick but it isn’t going to happen," Penner said.