New Report: MTA Should Put Its Money Where Its Riders Are

NEW YORK, NY – Ridership on New York's buses and subways outpace ridership on commuter lines, yet the MTA has favored improvements to these commuter lines, Metro-North Railroad and the Long Island Rail Road, Manhattan Institute Senior Fellow Nicole Gelinas says in a new report.

With 93 percent of the MTA’s ridership, subways and buses garner only 75 percent of capital funding for repairs, replacements and modest improvements.

Gelinas notes:

• The MTA’s large projects aren’t run efficiently, with cost overruns and schedule delays overwhelming the downstate region’s ability to plan for the future.
•  Because the authority has proven it doesn’t invest resources wisely, first, the authority must improve the way it selects, finances and executes projects.
• The MTA is investing its money in the wrong projects, relative to ridership and population growth. In the current five-year capital plan, 71 percent of the expansion funds go to the two commuter railroads, 10 times the commuter railroad’s 7 percent share of MTA ridership.

This imbalance includes investing $2.4 billion further in the $10.2 billion East Side Access project to bring LIRR trains to Grand Central Terminal rather than to Penn Station. It also includes $2 billion in building a third track on the LIRR’s main line.

“Both are worthy projects,” Gelinas writes. “Yet in an era of scarce resources, ridership levels do not justify the vast imbalance among the MTA’s priorities."

Click here to read the full report