Union Power Is Derailing New York's Subways
Subway crowding is at crisis levels — with platforms at Grand Central so packed now that people are often backed up to the top of the staircases.
But don’t expect better transit anytime soon. A new investment report shows how badly the state-run MTA is doing compared to New York’s global competitors.
“Strong unions — and weak politicians — mean we won’t get a 21st-century subway system probably until the 22nd century, at least.”
How crowded is your train? Let’s look at some popular neighborhoods. Twenty years ago, 8,943 people used the Bedford Avenue stop along the L line daily. In 2014, 27,244 people did. Back then, 2,710 used the Smith and Ninth St. F-train station over the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn each day. Now, 4,762 people do.
How about The Bronx, if you can’t afford Brooklyn? As the once-burning borough has built new housing and jobs, the number of train riders there each day has soared, from 316,372 back then to 496,893 now.
Once, it was only central Manhattan where subway platforms seemed dangerously crowded. Today, you take an overpacked train from The Bronx to 125th Street — and hundreds more people are waiting to get on.
Crowding, ironically, creates more crowding. People can’t get on and off trains fast — keeping them idling longer. More people mean more sick passengers — and more fights.
Crowding also costs money. The MTA spent nearly $1 billion on overtime last year, often because workers have to make emergency repairs or see tens of thousands of people stranded.
Putting workers on platforms to control crowds costs money, too.
So why can’t we do something about it?
A report out last week by Moody’s, a bond-rating firm that advises investors, gives a clue. Moody’s analysts compared New York’s transit system to the Western world’s other two great transit systems: London and Paris.
We can’t make the kind of investments these cities make, because we have to pay our transit workers a lot more. Every time a New Yorker takes a ride, the MTA must pay $4.11 in costs. (Taxes make up the difference above the $2.75 you pay.) By contrast, London’s transit agency pays only $2.61, and Paris, $1.93.
Our higher costs are pretty much entirely because of employee pay and benefits, which make up 75 percent of our transit costs, compared to 55 percent in Paris and 29 percent in London. A full dollar of your ride goes to pensions and health care alone.
As Moody’s notes, employee benefits consume “resources that would otherwise be available for” subway improvements. Moody’s adds London and Paris don’t have to pay these benefits because their national governments mostly pay for them.
We’re not getting national health care for people of working age anytime soon. But, just like France and Britain, we do have perfectly decent retiree benefits: Social Security and Medicare.
Let’s look just at the health-care part. The MTA will pay $591 million this year toward its retirees’ health care — and that cost will go up to $732 million in three years’ time.
That’s a lot of money, but not enough. The MTA should pay $2.1 billion annually toward this cost. Because the MTA can’t afford to pay what it promised, it’s way behind: It owes $13.7 billion in health-care promises to future retirees, but hasn’t set that money aside.
But why is the MTA paying anything toward retiree health care? For more than half a century, Americans have had British- and French-style socialized medicine for retirees over 65.
It’s not fair, obviously, to change the rules for current retirees. But there’s no reason why younger MTA workers shouldn’t expect to use their future pensions to pay for, and get, the same health care nearly all American retirees get. (If they want to retire before 65, they can figure out how to pay for health care until then, as other early retirees do.)
Why haven’t we made this change — which is hardly shredding the safety net?
Moody’s has the answer. The MTA has a “large labor force that has 87% membership in a collective bargaining unit,” it says.
Yep. Strong unions — and weak politicians — mean we won’t get a 21st-century subway system probably until the 22nd century, at least.
Sometimes the French are right.
This piece originally appeared at New York Post
This piece originally appeared in New York Post