Subterranean Terror: Survival Stories from the MTA
10.09.20
The story of the Metropolitan Transport Authority (MTA) is a story of constant crisis and calamity. It struggled from its birth in 1967, when public servant William Ronan first assembled the MTA and described it as “the biggest collection of losers ever collected under one roof.”
At the time, the New York metropolitan area hadn’t built any new subways in thirty years, and its last memorable addition to the commuter lines was Grand Central Terminal, built in 1913. In the style of decades of politicians before him, Ronan unleashed a grandiose plan for expansion — conveniently withholding the fact that the MTA would have to raise fares and tolls to pay off billions of dollars in new debt — and declared, “We’re making up for 30 years of do-nothingism in mass transportation.”
In fact, not one of his proposed projects was built for another fifty years. By the time Andrew Cuomo oversaw the grand opening of the 2nd Avenue Subway in 2017 (only phase one), the effort put such a strain on the MTA’s resources that the governor was forced to declare a state of emergency.
And this was three years before the coronavirus crossed its tracks. So, when MTA Chairman and CEO Pat Foye announced a “four-alarm fire” in response to Covid-19 losses, it wasn’t a far cry from what the MTA had been saying for the past fifty years.
Admittedly, the MTA is unlikely to find an immediate solution to its $10 billion COVID-19 shortfall. On Tuesday, President Trump rejected the latest stimulus package that many transit officials had hoped for, claiming he will revisit a stimulus bill after he wins the election.
We have to ask: if Uncle Sam won’t step up, could Train Daddy have saved us? And if not, can the largest rapid transit system in the world really continue to operate so precariously?
You Can Always Borrow More Money, Tomorrow
To understand the MTA’s financial troubles, it helps to look back to Abraham Beame, one of the MTA’s earliest comptrollers who later served as mayor during New York’s close brush with bankruptcy. During his time as comptroller and mayor, Beame liked to engage in what he called “fiscal gymnastics,” or mixing the operating and capital budgets to pay down short-term expenses. He obtained a special exemption from the president to allocate federal funds towards operating expenses (known as the “Beame Shuffle”) and infuriated the governor by perpetually suggesting: “You could always borrow more, tomorrow.”
By the time New England travel writer Paul Theroux came to New York in the early 1980s, there was only one way to survive the subway: “You have to look as if you’re the one with the meat cleaver. You have to go in with your eyes flashing.” The transit system was deteriorating nearly three times faster than it was being restored. 250 felonies occurred daily and ridership levels were only half of what they had been after World War II. Theroux recalled “rats as big as cats,” and suspected that the mass graffiti projects were funded by “some enormous foundation grant.”
The MTA was rescued from its role as “Gothic Terror” by Richard Ravitch, a young housing developer who believed that a public agency had a moral obligation to take care of its assets. He designed and lobbied for the MTA’s first capital plan, which focused exclusively on rehabilitating the subway. While the project marked the start of the MTA’s renaissance, it did nothing to improve the MTA’s finances. At the start of the capital program, the MTA had less than $300 million in debt. Ten years later, its outstanding debt was thirty times higher — at $9 billion — and its annual principal and interest payments on this debt were approaching $250 million a year.
This trend has only continued in recent years, following two decades of governmental cutbacks. Outstanding debt now stands at $44.8 billion, and debt service is projected to climb to 26% of revenues next year.
The Automobile Versus Mass Transit
One reason mass transit often got shirked by the government is that it took a financial backseat to the 20th century’s preferred mode of transportation: the automobile. How the private motor vehicle — a suburban creature if there ever was one — came to dominate fifty to sixty percent of our urban spaces is a mystery that we will still be unraveling fifty years from now.
Most postwar politicians followed the word of Robert Moses, a master demolition artist who operated by a simple credo: “Cities are created by and for traffic.” Public transit, he believed, was for the poor. When the public sector was given the choice between investing in roads, bridges, and highways versus mass transit, it nearly always chose the former, thanks in large part to auto-centric state and federal policies. In 1956, President Eisenhower signed the Federal Highway Act, which dedicated $25 billion to build more than 40,000 miles of highway. Public transit was never fortunate enough to have 90% of its costs covered by the federal government.
It also helped that street level infrastructure projects were significantly cheaper. In 1956, New York estimated that it could build eleven highways for $363 million — a figure that wouldn’t even cover the cost of one new subway line on Manhattan’s East Side. Highways eventually paid for themselves: most were outfitted with toll booths that covered both their debt service and ongoing expenses. This is not the case for mass transit. The vast majority of America’s 1,800+ public transit systems lose money and need to be continuously subsidized by the government.
“Breaking even is not an objective, nor should it be,” said Steve Polan, co-chair of the Transportation committee of the Citizens Budget Commission, a non-partisan organization that monitors New York City’s finances. As a public-benefit organization, the MTA operates on a loss to subsidize dozens of industries that rely on non-local workers. Even so, New Yorkers still pay a far higher share of operating expenses than most other mass transit riders.
Why is the MTA Such A Big Spender?
Another cause of the MTA’s financial woes is that it has the highest construction costs of any mass transit system in the world. The 2nd Avenue Subway, an endless political tool that took over a century just to complete phase one, cost $1.7 billion per kilometer. Compare this to Berlin ($250 million), Paris ($230 million), and Copenhagen ($260 million).
Much of this stems from modernization — it’s amazing what you can get away with without health or safety regulations. But the general public no longer tolerates construction projects sullying their daily lives. What 21st century New Yorker would accept cutting off the sewage line so that the subway can be finished faster? Unfortunately, New York didn’t maintain accurate utility maps, so when construction began on the 2nd Avenue line, workers often had to dig by hand. “The men may not be using spoons to dig, as some archeologists do, but they’re just as careful,” said the mayor’s transportation administrator. “It’s like relocating a spider’s web.”
Communities are also much more invested in public works projects than ever before. Activist groups, like the Straphangers Campaign, want to be consulted and included in the final project. While community dialogue certainly drums up political support, it does nothing to move things faster. One Transit Authority official who worked on the 2nd Avenue project fondly recalled the construction days of La Guardia: “There was no nonsense about consulting the communities on where the stations were to be located. One day the jackhammers appeared and that’s when you knew where the stations would be.”
Another issue is New York’s vast union power. “Costs in New York are astronomical,” said one Second Avenue subway executive. “You can’t even admit it, but a lot has to do with the unions.” The MTA doesn’t determine wages and benefits for its workers: the trade associations and unions’ representatives do. New York subway construction workers earn fifty percent more than those in Amsterdam, Houston, Munich, and London, and more than twice as much as those in Seoul, Hong Kong, and Tokyo.
Union rules also mandate that contractors hire far more workers than necessary: New York employs approximately four times as many personnel for similar jobs in Asia, Australia, and Europe. One contractor summed up the labor oversupply neatly, “Sometimes you need two guys if you want to turn a screw.” The catch is, without the well-connected unions, subway projects are unlikely to garner enough political support for approval. But with them, they may be too expensive ever to complete.
The Fifteen-Minute City
What can the MTA do? By state law, the MTA can’t declare bankruptcy. Instead, some groups have predicted that the MTA will shut down half its lines or raise fares to $9 a ride. It could also borrow $3.3 billion more from the Fed if necessary.
On the bright side, the MTA is likely to lose its main competitor for public funding in the next few decades. Urban planners have finally realized the folly of building cities around cars rather than people. Internationally, plans are underway for more localized urban centers, much like the cyclist-centered Dutch city of Groningen, where two-thirds of trips are made by bicycle. (Of course, Groningen is also incredibly youthful, has a wonderful climate, and no hills. Most New Yorkers might need an e-bike to clear Lexington Ave).
In Paris, Mayor Anne Hidalgo dreams of a “fifteen-minute city,” where “you can find everything you need within fifteen minutes from home.” That is, by bike or foot. Cars are not welcome. The new space given to cyclists and pedestrians would come at the expense of cars: Hidalgo plans to remove 72% of its on-street parking spaces.
Carlos Moreno, a “smart city” professor at the University of Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne, suggests a new organization of streets that combines green spaces, workplaces, and essential living needs all within one neighborhood. Most cities are “still driven by the paradigm of the oil era and its impact on roads and general urban planning,” said Moreno. “Pervasive petrol-powered transport” will only disappear if it is designed out. Ironically, many of Moreno’s ideas draw heavily from the work of Jane Jacobs, the activist housewife who saved the West Village from being razed by Robert Moses for another expressway.
And as for mass transit? Travel patterns would become more distributed and less focused around rush hour peaks, much like they’re being used during pandemic commutes. Call it a dress rehearsal for our future of carless cities. For as Theroux presciently noted, “The subway is New York City’s best hope. The streets are impossible; the highway a failure; there is nowhere to park. The private automobile has no future whatsoever in this city.”
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