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Including a DMV registration fee if you live in the "Metropolitan Commuter Transportation District" the MTA is a sham...
... and rental cars, and drivers license fees.
That said, of course, a portion of those fees do go towards the TBTA products.
Did you know those additional taxes/fees account 15% of the MTA operations income now?
It's why the court of appeals couldn't/wouldn't shut them down despite unconstitutional grounds.
Service would have to be cut drastically.
The MTA needs to get it's costs under control and raise fares significantly on some of their products. (Commuter Rail is a huge bloodshed).
I'm pretty certain every single MTA/TBTA report disagrees with you there.
2013 TBTA Income -1,645,193,000
2013 operating expenses - 409,496,000
That's a 1 billion profit.
In the last 20 years they spent 4.5 Billion in Capital Investments within the TBTA products.
Billions funneled from drivers. There is NO need for the tolls to be so high to operate these bridges.
This isn't even taking into account car registration fees STATEWIDE that subsidize the MTA.
Pensions are not included in this figure. And as you sate, neither are capital investments.
There is no denying tolls recuperate costs for the TBTA but they are not funding NCYT. Let put this to you another way. NCYT recuperates mosts of it's costs from its own fares. They receive very little subsidy (comparative speaking, in terms of number of riders,) and what little subsidy they do receive, is more than covered for by the taxes NYC residents pay. Here is a graph showing subsidies per agency:
As you can see, NYCT receives little more than 50 cents per rider (less, now that fares are $2.50, and soon to go up.) NYC busses receive more, but it is the Staten Island Ferry and suburban mass transit that receives most of the subsidies. They are the ones you are paying for. Not NYCT.
In fact, if the city could take control of it's subway and local busses, the taxes NYC residents pay the MTA would be more than enough to keep the systems running.
Pensions are not included in this figure. And as you sate, neither are capital investments.
There is no denying tolls recuperate costs for the TBTA but they are not funding NCYT. Let put this to you another way. NCYT recuperates mosts of it's costs from its own fares. They receive very little subsidy (comparative speaking, in terms of number of riders,) and what little subsidy they do receive, is more than covered for by the taxes NYC residents pay. Here is a graph showing subsidies per agency:
As you can see, NYCT receives little more than 50 cents per rider (less, now that fares are $2.50, and soon to go up.) NYC busses receive more, but it is the Staten Island Ferry and suburban mass transit that receives most of the subsidies. They are the ones you are paying for. Not NYCT.
In fact, if the city could take control of it's subway and local busses, the taxes NYC residents pay the MTA would be more than enough to keep the systems running.
Multiply the Buses and Subway riders by the grand mass numbers they have compared to the other modes of transit, and you begin to see where the greater share of need comes from.
As for the MNR and LIRR, it's unbelievable how out of control expensive they are, and still require absurd subsidies.
I'm not against public transit by any means- I simply think the best bet for at least the NYC based products is a set fee. Bridges, Tunnels, Subways, Busses, Ferries, and LIRR/MNR within the city limits should all be a fixed price, ideally closing in on breaking even with costs.
Multiply the Buses and Subway riders by the grand mass numbers they have compared to the other modes of transit, and you begin to see where the greater share of need comes from.
As for the MNR and LIRR, it's unbelievable how out of control expensive they are, and still require absurd subsidies.
I'm not against public transit by any means- I simply think the best bet for at least the NYC based products is a set fee. Bridges, Tunnels, Subways, Busses, Ferries, and LIRR/MNR within the city limits should all be a fixed price, ideally closing in on breaking even with costs.
In 2013, NYCT served little more than 1.7 billion riders. Taking into account that fares are now $2.50, that is a subsidy of $.31 per rider. That is $521 million. Taxes NYC residents alone pay would cover that, and then some.
Over the past 2 decades, NYCT has been steady reducing its subsidies. I don't think it's feasible to completely eliminate it's subsidies without making it too expensive for poor NYers (unless the MTA manages to make real estate work for them, like Hong Kong's system,) but you can't say that it's the 31 cent subsidy per rider that is the problem.
The problem with set fees is that set fees do not account for inflation, and that transportation is not created equal. There is no mode of transportation as efficient as the subway. It moves the most amount of people with minimum resources. Just try and move 1.7 billion people a year in NYC with car infrastructure alone, as you'll see massive gridlock. That means we need to invest more in certain transit over others. At moment, the subway system barely operates in a state of good repair. It's bursting at the seems, and the there's no money for improvement. We can't keep minimally investing in the system.
A good part of the problem is that the MTA is too big, mismanaged and full of redundancies.
Agreed. Giving it more access to taxpayer funds around the state was not the right way to go about solving it's issues.
I would say the problem is not really access to taxpayer funds, but rather lack of transparency and lack of accountability. Where is our money going? Is it going to pay for service, or is it being used to fund ridiculous pensions and salaries for both management and workers alike? This is what happens when you have a huge agency that only answers to the governor. Said governor also has the power to take away any tax payer funds and use it to pay for pet projects.
If we ever want a shot of reforming the MTA, we have to start with electing a governor AND mayor that know and care about mass transit. Cuomo has repeatedly shown that he does not care about mass transit, lately by vetoing a MTA tax transparency bill. And DeBlasio has shown that he has no clue about mass transit in proposing a citywide ferry that would be even more heavily subsidized, and benefit no-one but rich developers that build along the shore.
I hope fellow forumers will think twice about who they vote for in future elections, and pay more attention to candidates transit policies. It benefits both sides.
I hope fellow forumers will think twice about who they vote for in future elections, and pay more attention to candidates transit policies. It benefits both sides.
Public Benefit Corporations and "Authorities" should be the first thing to be struck down.
Next, the MTA Board should be elected, not appointed.
The Director of the MTA, should have guidelines listened to by the commuters.
So, if I understand the implication of saying the phrase "consumption tax":
Is saying these assessed tolls are a "consumption tax" conveying the concept that ONLY those persons or parties who actually DO take advantage of the use of highways or bridges or tunnels using their motor vehicle should be the ones to pay for it? That is, that it was decided that the general-population-at-large shouldn't ALL TOGETHER AS A WHOLE have to pay for something through their taxes that they don't ALL use (as they don't ALL own or even rent motor vehicles) but only those who actually use it should pay for it directly ... but then those persons or parties are only made to pay for it at each single instance that they use it and hence it is called a "consumption tax"?
That's right. It costs $114 for you to cross the bridge in a standard tractor trailer.
I am the only one who thinks that is insane ?? For a bridge that initially opened in 1931 at a cost of $75 million ?? Does any other toll road in the United States cost so much ??
You'd have to go into the history of Robert Moses-era New York, when the transportation infrastructure was basically created in the form we understand today. Moses pioneered the use of "authorities" like the TBTA to fund huge projects without popular approval. You could basically write a big book on how we got the hodgepodge. It would be a pretty interesting book with every kind of corruption and organized crime and backroom wheeling and dealing you can imagine.
There actually is a book on the subject. It's an interesting read, but the short version is that Robert Moses is to blame for basically every problem in NYC today.
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George washington bridge toll increase
