Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) Chair and CEO Janno Lieber appeared live on WCBS Newsradio 880 with Michael Wallace and Steve Scott to discuss Albany budget meetings and other transportation related topics.
A transcript of the interview appears below.
Steve Scott: Mayor Adams is not in favor of Governor Hochul’s proposal to help the MTA’s bottom line. Speaking before the Assembly Ways and Means Committee today, the mayor said the city's being hit twice higher fares and an increase in the city's contributions to the MTA. MTA Chief Janno Lieber joins us on WCBS Mr. Lieber. Good to talk with you again. So, is a fare increase set in stone now and how much would that hurt your effort to win riders back?
Janno Lieber: You know, a couple of weeks ago, Michael, Steve the governor put on the table a really balanced super pro transit plan to solve the MTA budget deficit which is a result only of COVID and work from home. The governor said everybody's got to participate in addressing this. The MTA has got to find hundreds of millions of dollars of cost savings and efficiencies without cutting service. The state is going to be coming up with serious bucks and we also expect the city to pay for things that are paid for in the rest of the state by the locality. School transportation, yellow school buses are paid all over, but by the locality by the cities and towns, but in New York they're paid in large part by the MTA. The governor said that one should go to the city of New York, likewise paratransit, the access-a-ride van, the city obligation statewide. But overall, we have been cooperating with the city really, really well. This is a budget process. It's going to get worked through and the governor's plan is really setting a very positive pro transit momentum in motion.
Scott: Again, the mayor also worried about fare increases – is it a concern of yours the fare increases could hurt the effort to get ridership back up?
Lieber: I don't think so. You know, for over 10 years we had a financially secure MTA because we had very tiny, small, very incremental fare increases every two years. You didn’t really hear a lot of hue and cry about that. All that is being said by the governor is let's restore those small incremental fare increases so we don't see another MTA budget deficit open up in years to come. The most important thing in our approach to fares is we want to give discounts to people who are regular and frequent users. That's why you're seeing a lot this advertising for the Lucky 13 program. If there's a fare increase at the end of this process, even if it's small we're going to favor discounts for regular users.
Scott: Some politicians in the suburbs aren't happy either because of the proposed higher payroll mobility tax. We've heard Mike Lawler, the Republican congressman from Rockland, say no way why is that needed and how much money would that generate?
Lieber: That is a huge piece of the overall pro transit balanced proposal Governor Hochul’s put on the table. It's more, it's actually more than half of the whole solution. And here's why it makes sense. Because basically, first of all, it would only apply to the biggest employers. Only 5% of all businesses would be subjected to this little incremental payroll mobility tax. And the important thing is, all the employers want five day a week robust transit service so they can get their employees to come in. But they're letting people come in one to three days a week. We need a little help from the businesses who are benefiting from 5 day a week, very reliable and super frequent MTA service to chip in in that way. Remember, we've got on time performance the best in 10 years on the subway. Metro North and Long Island Rail Road historic high on time performance 96 and 97%. Never seen numbers like that before. We need a little help from the businesses to make sure we can do that even though people are coming in less frequently.
Scott: Are all these arguments over these different sources of funding a moot point if you don't get the ridership back? Where do you stand on getting more riders back?
Lieber: Well, that's the plan that the governor has put on the table is actually key to the reality of where we are in ridership. Right now we’re about two thirds of pre COVID ridership because work from home has become pretty entrenched in our white collar workforce. But there are a ton of people, working class people, middle class people who have to come in because their jobs require. We don't want to cut service to those people because white collar workers have the ability to remote work. We have built this plan, the governor has built her plan, around realistic projection of the fact that it’s going to take a couple of years to get us back to even 80%. That's responsible planning and her financial plan reflects that.
Scott: Alright, MTA Chairman Janno Lieber. Always a pleasure. Thank you for talking with us.
Lieber: Thank you Steve, thank you Mike.