{"id":55566,"date":"2020-08-28T03:03:00","date_gmt":"2020-08-28T00:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/the-mtas-route-out-of-its-existential-crisis\/"},"modified":"2020-08-28T03:03:00","modified_gmt":"2020-08-28T00:03:00","slug":"the-mtas-route-out-of-its-existential-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/the-mtas-route-out-of-its-existential-crisis\/","title":{"rendered":"#The MTA\u2019s route out of its existential crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#The MTA\u2019s route out of its existential crisis<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

\n New York City\u2019s transit system has weathered deadly crashes, fires, strikes, hurricanes and terror attacks \u2014 but COVID-19 poses its greatest threat yet.<\/p>\n

The numbers are startling. Over a two-week period in late March, subway ridership plummeted to fewer than 500,000, from 5.5 million people on an average workday. Commuter-rail and bus ridership collapsed as well. Even now, after a summer of careful reopening, weekday ridership remains low. Subway ridership is now nearly three-quarters below normal.<\/p>\n

In response, the MTA\u2019s immedia<\/a>te task is both operational and psychological \u2014 and the stakes are high. It must provide reliable service to the riders who need transit now and demonstrate to everyone watching that it can do so without exacerbating viral outbreaks. Its ability to pull this off bears relevance for everything from Broadway theaters to nightclubs to group-fitness classes. Subways and buses, in other words, are the first real test of whether Gothamites can crowd safely into the other vital indoor spaces.<\/p>\n

The hurdles are daunting. At least 131 transit workers have died from the coronavirus, translating into a death rate (351 per 100,000) far higher than the city average (270 per 100,000). These numbers lend validity to the perception that mass transit is risky.<\/p>\n

The good news<\/a>, though: Since ridership has increased over the past two months, COVID-19 cases have gone down.<\/p>\n

And the MTA is taking precautions, requiring riders to wear masks and aggressively cleaning trains and stations (even pausing service overnight to do so). \u201cRiders returning to the system for the first time in months immediately notice how clean it is,\u201d says Sarah Feinberg, acting head of New York Transit. And messaging, says Tom Prendergast, former MTA chairman, is key. If you can convince the public to wear masks, he explains, you can reduce chances New York will return to sheltering in place.<\/p>\n

But these precautions are expensive \u2014 disastrously so. Of the MTA\u2019s roughly $17.2 billion annual budget, $8.6 billion comes from fare and tax revenues, which have now plummeted. \u00adAnother $6.5 bill\u00adion comes from tax subsidies from industries devastated by the shutdowns. The consulting firm McKinsey estimates that the MTA faces a $7 billion to $8.5 billion deficit this year alone. Even with an infusion from the federal CARES Act, this spells not so much a budget deficit as a budget bomb.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s to be done?<\/p>\n

City government has a role to play in reducing subway crowding and redesigning streets to encourage biking, walking or busing to work, rather than taking cars or staying home. Fourteenth Street, for example, is now mostly bus-only. The city should take note of its success \u2014 and design other streets to follow suit.<\/p>\n

Bicycles, too, have a role to play. In the first weeks of the shutdown, \u201call modes of transportation plummeted, but bikes plummeted less,\u201d explained Polly Trottenberg, the city\u2019s transportation commissioner. The city is building out bike lanes on major corridors, she explained, and it\u2019s working with Citi Bike, a private franchise owned by Lyft, to add new bike stations.<\/p>\n

Longer term, the MTA faces an even tougher problem: where to find money for the tens of billions of dollars in planned \u00adupgrades, replacements and \u00adrepairs \u2014 and new construction it must do over the next five years. Some of the funding sources \u2014 including congestion pricing and the \u201cmansion tax\u201d \u2014 slated to fund previously planned renovations have disapp<\/a>eared or dwindled. It doesn\u2019t help that millionaires are fleeing.<\/p>\n

Ironically, COVID-19 conditions make for \u201crenovation prime time.\u201d Low ridership has enabled the MTA to accelerate $2 billion worth of work, including repairs on its underwater tunnel between Brooklyn and Manhattan and the installation of 11 elevators. Signal modernization could be next.<\/p>\n

If the MTA can obtain federal funding, tied to reform, this could signal the best solution. Why not take advantage of historic low ridership to do more work, more quickly, without \u00adinconveniencing passengers? If federal funding isn\u2019t forthcoming, the authority should at least prioritize repair and replacement, argues political scientist Philip Plotch.<\/p>\n

Looming behind these questions, of course, is the biggest one of all: Will New York come back to what it was in February \u2014 and, if so, when? In normal times, New York\u2019s complex, intertwined economy brings enormous benefits. Office workers support retail stores and restaurants, as do global tourists; their foot traffic, in turn, supports everything from the opera to museums to nightclubs. With each variable magnifying all the others, even a small change has huge effects.<\/p>\n

For those who once enjoyed the benefits of Gotham\u2019s precarious economic calculus, one can only hope that transit succeeds \u2014 so that the city can succeed again.<\/p>\n

Nicole Gelinas is a contributing editor of City Journal, from which this column was adapted.<\/em><\/p>\n

Twitter: @NicoleGelinas<\/em>\n <\/div>\n

\n

If you want to read more Opinion News articles, you can visit our General category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

if you want to watch Movies<\/a> or Tv Shows go to Dizi.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a> <\/span> for forums sites go to Forum.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“#The MTA\u2019s route out of its existential crisis” New York City\u2019s transit system has weathered deadly crashes, fires, strikes, hurricanes and terror attacks \u2014 but COVID-19 poses its greatest threat yet. The numbers are startling. Over a two-week period in late March, subway ridership plummeted to fewer than 500,000, from 5.5 million people on an…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":55567,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[60311],"class_list":["post-55566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-the-mtas-route-out-of-its-existential-crisis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55566"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55566\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}