Good morning! I’m Kara Gurl, Planning and Advocacy Manager at the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA (PCAC).
First, congratulations to the new members of the New York City Transit leadership team. Riders are in good hands with Bill Amarosa as Senior VP of Subways, Rachel Cohen as VP of Paratransit, Bernard Jackson joining us as COO from Dallas. Congrats to Chris Pangilinan on your new role at buses. And Frank, thank you for all you’ve done for bus riders.
Last week, USDOT Secretary Duffy threatened to withhold transit funding for the MTA if the agency doesn’t share data and plans on subway safety. The good news is that the MTA and NYPD have been sharing that data for years! The numbers don’t lie, and crime rates and fare evasion are way down. And even if the numbers weren’t trending in the right direction, defunding the MTA won’t make riders safer. Ditto for stopping congestion pricing, and the so-called reprieve is welcome. Thank you to Governor Hochul for standing strong in defense of riders— the cameras are staying on, and they’ll continue to past the monthlong extension.
Millions of daily riders depend on transit – as does our regional economy. We need investment, including fully funding the 2025-29 Capital Plan. The $35 billion funding gap that Albany needs to fill stands between riders and critical projects like station accessibility, signal upgrades, essential state of good repair work, and expansion projects like the IBX. And we hear that even more elevators are on the way, thanks to ongoing cost savings. But now it’s up to the Governor and legislators to put their heads together and make sure that our transit infrastructure doesn’t crumble. We’ll be back in Albany next week reminding them how important transit is. Our report from last month details dozens of ways that Albany could fund the MTA.
Lastly, we were proud to stand with Riders Alliance and CSS last week calling on the city to expand Fair Fares to 200% of the Federal Poverty Level and the commuter railroads within New York City. Over 415,000 more New Yorkers would qualify from this common-sense change. We appreciated hearing you advocate for this expansion last week as well. Thank you.