MTA In Dire Need Of Lifesaving Support From Feds
“The effects of COVID-19 are devastating to our region. More than ten thousand New Yorkers – including almost 70 transit workers, to-date – have lost their lives. Millions more have lost their livelihoods. Throughout it all, the MTA continues to run essential service for frontline workers: it moves the New Yorkers who save lives and care for the sick, and all those who allow us to flatten the curve. Now the MTA is in dire need of lifesaving support – the kind of help that only the federal government can provide.
“It is critical that the MTA emerge from this crisis able to serve riders and support the region’s economy; with some 10% of the U.S.’s GDP, as the region’s economy goes, so does the nation’s fiscal health. The MTA letter to the Congressional delegation released today, based on McKinsey analyses, calls for an additional $3.9 billion in emergency funding for the agency. It also highlights the flawed funding formula for distribution of federal transit dollars, whereby the MTA carries nearly 40% of the nation’s transit ridership but only gets 16% of the federal transit funding. It’s past time to fix that inequity.
“These funds should be recognized as an investment in the future health of the region and the millions of riders who rely on the MTA to get where they need to go, and in the transit system that will ultimately allow us to get back in business and back to normal. That’s going to take a while, as the report acknowledges. It’s only prudent, reasonable and rational to ensure that transit – the lifeblood of the region – is able to survive this crisis without having to resort to dire cuts which will increase crowding, have a negative impact on National COVID-19 recovery efforts- and could return us to the ‘bad old days’ of disinvestment, decay and delay.”