Subway Fare Hikes Won't Fix MTA's Budget Woes, Comptroller Says

NEW YORK — The Metropolitan Transportation Authority will face budget struggles even after it makes subway fares more expensive amid shaky ridership, the state comptroller warns in a new report. The beleaguered transit agency will have a projected $634 million budget gap in 2022 despite planned 4 percent fare and toll hikes in 2019 and 2021, according to Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli's financial outlook for the agency released Thursday.

The report says the drop in subway and bus ridership is among the factors driving the deficit, which the MTA acknowledged in July. Ridership is expected to be 236 million rides lower next year than the MTA's projected three years ago, leading to a total revenue loss of $822 million from 2016 through 2019 and about $250 million each year after that, according to the report.

The report also questioned the MTA's plans to overhaul the ailing subways. MTA Chairman Joe Lhota's $836 million Subway Action Plan has gotten off to a "slow start," the comptroller's office says, while New York City Transit's Fast Forward plan will depend on funding from the state and the city.

"Despite an infusion of $836 million in state and city funds, there has been little improvement so far in subway service," DiNapoli, a Democrat, said in a statement. "Riders are leaving the system in frustration and deserve better, especially considering the proposed increase in fares."

The subway's weekday on-time performance fell to 63.4 percent in 2017, the lowest rate since at least 1991, DiNapoli's office said. Annual ridership continued along its downward track through July of this year, and weekday ridership is expected to see its first two-year decline since 1992, the report says.

Lhota pitched the Subway Action Plan last July as a short-term effort to stabilize a system then in the midst of a crisis. But with three months left in the 18-month program, the MTA had committed just 58 percent of the $348.5 million in capital funds it made available for the plan and had not dedicated $117 million to signal upgrades, the report says.

NYC Transit President Andy Byford in May unveiled his Fast Forward plan to resurrect and modernize the subways. The MTA's forthcoming 2020-2024 Capital Program may include the first five years of the plan, which could cost about $40 billion over 10 years, according to DiNapoli's office.

But the comptroller's report says it "remains to be seen" whether the MTA can manage a capital plan as large as its next one could be. The 2005-2009 Capital Program, for example, started 13 years ago but is still only 83 percent complete, according to the report.

"The MTA will have to do better if it hopes to turn the system around," the report reads.

In response to DiNapoli's report, MTA spokesman Jon Weinstein said the agency is focused "every minute of every day" on solutions to the problems straphangers are dealing with.

“We know these issues and the struggles riders are facing well – it’s why the MTA has new leadership, dramatic modernization plans, short-term blueprints for improving service, aggressive cost-containment initiatives and why we’ve been pleading for sustainable, reliable sources of funding," Weinstein said in a statement.

(Lead image: Photo from Shutterstock)