(Photo credit: Brian Hedden)

1. The Fundamental Problem With The MTA Is Us

We’re always blaming the MTA for everything that goes wrong. Here’s the problem with that – we’re almost always wrong.

Case-in-point: This newest mess was directly caused by two clearly-attributable actions by the State Government:

(1) The State “realized” it had made a $200 million mistake on the bailout tax – can we still call it a bailout if it doesn’t deliver the cash that the State said it would deliver?

(2) On top of that, the State cut previously approved funding in December by another $143 million

It doesn’t get any more clear-cut than this: there’s a disingenuous and financially inept party here, and it isn’t the MTA. But no one seems to see that – everyone is still hammering on the MTA like they’re the ones who made the mistakes, that it was somehow MTA mismanagement that cause the state to deliver $343 million less than it had promised. I find this attitude particulalry poisonous when politicians like Borough Presidents Scott Stringer and Marty Markowitz bring political pressure to bear against the MTA instead of the Senate – nothing is gong to get fixed that way.

Disclosure: I get really upset when I see the public lashing out at the MTA with so much anger, without getting the facts straight first.

If you are blaming ANYONE outside of the Albany Capitol building for this, you simply are Not. Paying. Attention.

I’m sorry for the scolding, but someone had to say it. I hope we can still be Facebook Friends.

2. The State Senate Is Projecting Its Flaws On The MTA

Senator Carl Kruger (D-Mill Basin) recently blamed the MTA for miscalculating tax revenue. Gee, that’s rich – because it’s Albany that collects taxes, not the MTA. And as Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, that really makes it Kruger’s job, more than anyone else’s, to make sure the numbers are right.

Where I work – probably where you work, too – people get fired for making $200 million mistakes. Since Kruger’s performance review doesn’t come up again until November 2010, I suggest he does everyone a favor and resigns, effective immediately.

3. Transit Advocates Are Asleep At The Switch

NYPIRG’s Straphangers organization, for their part, isn’t blaming the MTA, but their crack staff is still spending more time in the press criticizing the transit authority’s solution to a lousy mess than the State Government for causing it. This ain’t gonna get fixed unless political pressure is brought to bear on Albany.

4. Tolls Are Highway Robbery At The City’s Fringes While The Bridges Are Free At The City’s Core

Ridiculously high tolls are justified by saying they subsidize the mass transit engine that runs New York – fees from one part of the transportation network are used to fund a complementary part of the network.

Logical in principal, deeply flawed in practice: the core of the mass transit system is in Manhattan and downtown Brooklyn, and most of the onerous tolls are at crossings that connect the four outer boroughs to each other – where mass transit options that do the same job can be counted with one hand (S53, S79, S93, Q44, and QBx1 buses). Transit-funding tolls belong where the transit is – the East River, not the city fringe.

5. Verrazano Bridge

$11 to go to Staten Island is patently ridiculous.

6. Discounts to Staten Island Residents… And No One Else

To whom does it make sense that a Tottenville resident that lives 14 miles from the Verrazano should get a 50% discount, but a Bay Ridge resident living only 2 miles away gets no discount? Is living on Staten Island really that much of a handicap?

Actually, let’s not answer that as to not offend our Staten Island friends.

7. Politicians Against East River Tolls

I get a little annoyed by Marty Markowitz, who is always quick to attack any East River toll proposal, but has never pointed out how much more unfair the Verrazano toll is to Brooklynites than theoretical East River tolls.

8. “They oughta make the MTA run itself like a business!”

Then the MTA would dramatically raise fares and scale back service until they had nothing left but a two-borough subway network. Routes with lower ridership would be shortened or scrapped, and the bus network would be done away with in its entirety. And they’d dramatically jack up fares so they could turn a tidy profit without a government subsidy. That’s how businesses are run, and that’s why we DON’T let them run transit agencies.

On the other hand, private contractors are also adept at bending politicians to their will with lucrative bribes intense lobbying. So maybe there is something to this privatization thing.