Comments on: Let’s Hear About Mayor Bloomberg’s Transit Improvement Plan

By: Larry Littlefield

Larry Littlefield — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 13:35:42 +0000

(However, you keep pointing out the problem without describing any solutions, which doesn't help me determine what I should conclude or what I can do about it.)

Tell the winners they have taken enough, and have to give some back. That's what I try to do at http://www.r8ny.com. Generational equity is an issue of which the MTA situation is just a small part.

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 12:54:02 +0000

xue, if I'm not mistaken, the answer to the problem that Larry describes above is to raise fares and tolls so that a greater portion of infrastructure operating costs is paid for by operating revenues. Raising taxes would help provide additional revenues to transportation agencies, as well.

By: xue

xue — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 21:04:18 +0000

Larry, appreciate your insightful (if somewhat repetitive) point about the broader issue of society's long-term debt. However, you keep pointing out the problem without describing any solutions, which doesn't help me determine what I should conclude or what I can do about it.

By: Mark

Mark — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 20:07:09 +0000

"Why do the media and political debate generally focus on opposition to the congestion fee, and not on the hefty support enjoyed by the mayor's idea of a congestion fee that supports transit?" Car ads. Watch a single newscast and count them. You'll be amazed.

By: Larry Littlefield

Larry Littlefield — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 18:12:58 +0000

Essentially, Bloomberg's original idea was to fund transit improvements over and above the MTA capital plan with congestion pricing revenues, along with the rest of his Plan 2030 agenda. That's what you find if you read the report, and what backed the claim that the agenda wasn't just platitudes like other plans. It was funded, and the funds would go to NYC, not the MTA. But Messers Silver, Spitzer, Bruno et al realize that as a result of the MTA's $23 billion debt and pension obligations, huge money will have to be found to support the 2010 to 2014 capital plan if we are to even keep the system from collapse while building those projects now under construction. Where is that going to come from? We'll be lucky if the proposal isn't to take all the future revenues from congestion pricing and its equivalent, and use it to back 30, 40 or 50-year bonds that just pay for the next five years of ongoing nomral replacement. That's what they did with the sales tax increase for the last MTA capital plan. After 2009 we'll be paying the tax for years, perhaps forever with refinancing, but get nothing for it.