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The Riders Alliance is calling on the governor to invest in public transit service frequency and affordability.
By Forum Staff
The grassroots Riders Alliance, New York’s organization of subway and bus riders, on Tuesday called on Gov. Kathy Hochul to change the downstate transportation funding formula and invest in public transit service frequency and affordability with her 21-day budget amendments due out next Tuesday, Feb. 8.
“Now is the moment for Governor Hochul to invest in more affordable and frequent public transit service,” said Riders Alliance Policy & Communications Director Danny Pearlstein. “While federal highway aid pours in, the governor and legislative leaders must deploy New York’s own resources for public transit’s recovery. Riders need an affordability guarantee and buses and trains every six minutes. If Hochul delivers more service, New Yorkers will ride it.”
Flush with federal highway money, Gov. Hochul’s executive budget proposal includes a record-setting $32.8 billion New York State Department of Transportation Capital Plan, 40 percent larger than the last one. The plan is supported by $13.5 billion in aid from last fall’s federal infrastructure bill, $4.6 billion more for New York roads than was in the 2015 federal FAST Act. The governor’s plan calls for widening several highways, including NY-17/I-86, Sunrise Highway, and the Van Wyck Expressway through the heart of Queens. National transportation advocates strongly condemn infrastructure bill provisions for highway widening, arguing such projects divide communities, don’t improve road conditions, and encourage driving, worsening climate change and air pollution.
On Tuesday, citing the federal windfall and urgent need to invest in transit service, the Alliance called on Hochul to change the State’s own formula for distributing transportation tax receipts within the downstate area served by the MTA. Currently, motor fuel taxes, petroleum business taxes, and vehicle registration fees raise over $1.8 billion annually. The MTA receives one-third of the total, roughly $600 million. The remaining two-thirds of the so-called Dedicated Funds Pool, over $1 billion each year, now pay for road construction.
Instead, the Riders Alliance argued, Hochul should flip the allocation of these funds to recoup upwards of $500 million that could pay for a fare freeze and six-minute service, which in turn would accelerate New York’s recovery, advance equity, and fight climate change.
The Riders Alliance has refined its funding demand for a five-year long transit fare freeze and six-minute subway and bus service. With millions of New Yorkers riding every day, but still just half as many as before the pandemic, these investments, speakers Thursday argued, are essential to restoring New York’s economy, advancing equity, and fighting climate change.
The RA argued that new federal infrastructure dollars free up major state resources to make robust investments in rebuilding ridership. A half-decade fare freeze would protect low-income service workers who predominate among transit riders today while also making transit comparatively more attractive to millions of other New Yorkers and visitors now weighing multiple transportation options.
More frequent service would yield faster transit trips, the Alliance noted, outcompeting other modes and drawing even more riders to the system while also helping close the acute access to opportunity gap that drives inequity in New York.
