If east river is tolled, congestion pricing is introduced etc etc, then businesses move out. This WILL happen. It will happen over years but it will happen.

No, airberd, that’s what you imagine will happen.

You might have already forgotten but the major business interests of New York were among the strongest supporters of congestion pricing. If it weren’t for the Partnership’s endorsement and studies, it CP would never been put onto the table by our strongly pro-business mayor.

Looking into the next decade, congestion is projected to be the biggest drag on the local economy and will discourage the best and brightest from moving to NYC over other cities, giving an edge in the global economy to cities such as London, Hong Kong and Singapore, where strong efforts are being made to ensure a consistent, dependable flow of goods and labor.

If only that were the case, the agency already would have enough money. We’ve added one dedicated revenue source after another.

Unforntunately, it the MTA needs all the above AND it needs to pay back its massive debts AND it needs to fill the pension underfunding hole AND it has to pay retiree health benefits accrued in the past for which not one dime has been set aside. All these claims must be paid before a dime is spent on operations, which are funded before a dime is spent on sufficient capital investment.

That’s the problem. And not just at the MTA.

Yes, it is true that there are inefficiencies. The same is true of any big organization. But the potential gains of realisitic efficiency measures are not big enough to overcome the massive underfunding of transit. Maybe you could squeeze the union and get some wage/benefit concessions, but you are not going to switch to minimum wage train operators. There is only so much you can squeeze from operating efficiency, and it isn’t enough to fill the hole we’re in.

The MTA needs stable revenue sources that will allow it to fund operations at an acceptable level of service, and in addition to make sufficient capital investment to maintain the existing system and modernize/improve the system as well. If you really want to reduce the operating budget, that is where you should be looking – improvements in automation and information processing that will allow things to run faster, more frequently, and with less human supervision.

I believe that upgrades to existing infrastructure would be money better spent than “megaprojects” like the 2nd ave subway, but that is a different debate. Likewise, what proportion of the revenue shold be derived from various taxes, tolls, state and federal funds, and fares, is a different topic. But the reality is that some mix of these things needs to be allocated to provide more revenue.

To airberd, your claim that business will leave NYC in response to East River tolls is simply incorrect. No one can know the economic implications in a such a complex city with certainty, but all the evidence points the opposite effect. Increased tolls to enter Manhattan will result in decreased congenstion and, given that some of the toll revenue is dedicated to transit, increased access via transit. Any non-fringe economist will agree that the aggregate effect is decreased marginal costs and increased demand for business located within the toll zone, and possibly even in the region bordering the toll zone.

In the private economy, the pay of top managers has soared relative to everyone else. Some people believe that is a fair result of the market, and some believe it is the result of monopoly pricing by the executives who sit on each other’s boards and hire the same executive consultants to show they they deserve to be paid more (the equivalent of unions, the state legislature, and pensions).

Either way, in general management level positions are paid less well than their private sector equivalents, rank and file workers are paid better (particularly if non-wage benefits are included).

In quasi-public agencies like the MTA and another I am very familiar with, and in non-profits that get their funding from taxes, management pay has tended to escalate in competition with (or using the excuse of) the private sector, to levels that most would find excessive. Far lower than the private sector, it is higher than other public agencies. That is the situation.

Compared with most people, Walder’s proposed salary is sky high. Compared with transportation executives outside the public sector, perhaps not. I can tell you that a culture has emerged in MTA management in which managers, engineers and other professionals compare their pay with similar workers in private organization, not Department of Motor Vehicle workers or the people working the diner.

Just as the TWU argues that it deserves the 4 percent raises because other public employees got them, and deserve 20/50 because the toll collectors got them, rather than compare their situation with most workers. Just as CEOs only compare themselves with other CEOs, rather than compare their situation with most workers. Just as colleges only compare their tuition increases with other colleges, rather than with average income. Etc.

You take any of these groups and make the comparison with people in general, you become the enemy — a flaming socialist in the case of the CEOs, a union-buster in the case of the TWU. And since these are the folks with power, you don’t dare.

Show me the figures.

Not so much you, Larry, but I’m glad it brought out a longer explanation. I think it’s great that people have an opinion about the business of a public authority, in this case its union’s pay raise. (I also wish they would pay more attention to the bigger fiscal picture.) Your opinions are particularly well supported. What I don’t think is great is others’ opposition seen on many occasions to all transit funding increases because there is a union somewhere down the line, collecting a debatably outsized share. Indeed, there is an there will be. They should try to convince a majority of their fellow citizens to stop showing such a soft spot for unions (and good luck with that), but that crusade has little to do with transit advocacy today in New York.

Transit ysstems worldwide run at a fraction of what MTA costs.

Citation please? Comparisons to other developed countries would be especially useful.

Sorry to perpetuate the off-topic tangent, but as Nathan H. said, anti-union sentiment pervades much of the criticism levied at the MTA. It’s sad how many Americans have been conditioned to believe that wanting a living wage and adequate health care amounts to greediness.

Transit systems worldwide run at a fraction of whats MTA costs. This bloated carcass needs to go.

Good grief kids, PAY UP. Support congestion pricing. Support tolling the east river bridges. Support higher property taxes – or pay the $15+ per ride that the market could extract. CHOOSE.

The interests of transit workers and transit riders are sometimes aligned, but generally not. If transit workers earn more (in total including benefits) than riders, they pay less when they go shopping because others are paid less, and the riders are worse off. Riders can benefit from a less good deal for transit workers. Both can benefit at the expense of taxpayers, or other services, but remember NYC has just about the highest combined state and local tax burden as a share of income in the U.S.

So the deal between transit workers and other workers can be fair, it can be unfair to transit workers, or it can be unfair to other workers that ride the trains. That can change over time. My views change accordingly.

My view is that until recently it has been more or less fair. Which is why I say the MTA has been destroyed by debts, not by workers. It would have become unfair if transit workers got a 20/50 pension while other workers get no pension at all, which is what they went on strike for.

Now, however, their pension costs are soaring, and yet while fares and taxes are raised so riders pay more, transit workers are paying even less.

Health care costs are rising and more and more NY workers lose health insurance, and yet riders and taxpayers are forced to pay more for transit worker’s health insurance, and yet transit worker recently got a deal not to contribute more.

Most New Yorkers are having their pay frozen or even reduced, which I didn’t complain about because inflation has stopped going up. But from 2000 to 2007 real (inflation adjusted) average pay fell, except for those at the very top. The union claim is that they were benefitting at the expense of “the rich,” but now that the taxable income of the rich has plunged, it is clear who will be sacrificed for a 12% pay gain.

(BTW, I never understood why labor contracts lasted more than one year. What if things change, in either direction?)

As for transit vs. education, the Prince can tell you which union I am most upset with. The teachers got that retroactive pension enhancement. And while wage increases, particularly starting wage increases, can help service recipients as well as workers by attracting and keeping qualified and motivated workers, retroactive pension enhancements do nothing of the kind. Indeed, the worst thing public employee unions have done to everyone else hasn’t been to increase the total take, but to always work to shift a greater share of it to those who do not work.

The TWU should be careful. Remember, I produced reams of articles showing that NYC schools were underfunded and its teachers underpaid. When things became unfair in the opposite direction, my attitude toward the UFT shifted 180 degrees. It may be too much to ask for enilightened self interest in our culture, but expect hostility to the TWU to go far beyond the MI if go in the direction that is likely.

the canada line is a high capacity grade seperated rail transit line carrying at least a hundred thousand fare paying riders a day upon opening with minimal operating cost (no train operators and i believe no station agents)… think about if this was case in NYC where 7 million ride the subway a day, why cant they automate the NYC subway system to cut operating costs dramatically so that the system turns a profit and then they could use that money to pay for transit expansion especially subway expansion?

All of these variables were considered when looking at the overall cost. The Canada Line’s estimated capital cost of about $1.9 billion ($2003) will provide the additional transportation capacity equivalent to 10 major road lanes and serve the region for the next 50 to 100 years. Fare revenue and savings associated with the Canada Line are projected to be equal to or greater than operating costs over the life of the 35-year contract, i.e., requiring no net operating subsidy.
source: http://www.canadaline.ca/aboutFAQ.asp

A better comparison would be to tell us what Walder makes compared to other transit chiefs around the world or to the directors of other city services, such as sanitation.

Well, since you said please…

Walder’s $350,000 is less than half of what the CEO of Jetblue gets. And it’s just three or four percent of what the CEO of United gets! Here are the figures for 2007:

United $10,300,000
Continental $7,300,000
Northwest $7,700,000
US Airways $5,400,000
American $4,600,000
AirTran $2,700,000
Delta $3,700,000
Alaska $1,400,000
Southwest $1,300,000
Jetblue $800,000

(See source. Thanks to Dan Berkman for doing a variation of this post a few weeks ago.)

The cost of the TWU is fixed for all practical purposes; it is large and “politically connected” as Gelinas points out—so, you know—it will be around for a while. We have to take that cost into account and fund transit sufficiently, with the help of use fees and consumption taxes. We have to prioritize transit above some points of our diverse ideologies. There is plenty in this approach for transit advocates of any stripe to appreciate. It will certainly do more than blaming the MTA and calling it a day.

If the economy get significantly worse, then and only then would I expect to see big NYC unions broken in my lifetime. (I am not saying if I think that is good or bad, just a fact.) But at that point, we can’t go back and build the essential infrastructure that this city needs to thrive, or even survive. We have to build it now, under current constraints, or it doesn’t get built. Griping about the inefficient process is just a distraction, eagerly encouraged by indifferent politicians and others that could give a damn about our public transportation.