Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer On Future Transportation Needs For Roosevelt Island, Manhattan And All Of New York City - Calls For A Transportation Infrastructure Bank

Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer With Roosevelt Island Residents At Trellis Diner March 23 2011

According to Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer:

The future looked rosy 100 years ago, when New York undertook a revolutionary plan to build a vast network of subways and elevated trains. But it looks considerably different today, as we struggle to meet urgent transit needs.

Anyone who’s crammed their way on to a crowded tram at rush hour, waited for the F train to the Roosevelt Island station or struggled to find alternate ways to get on and off the island on the weekend understands that while Manhattan is blessed with tremendous public transit, there is still room for needed improvement and expansion.

One million more people will be living in our City by 2025 and to put it bluntly: We are not ready. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority -- the central nervous system of our regional transportation network -- is a fiscal house of cards.

This crucially important agency is being held together with a combination of unprecedented borrowing, and fare hikes as far as the eye can see. That’s no way to run a railroad, much less the nation’s largest transit system.

What’s needed is a new, more stable stream of revenue for the MTA, one that stabilizes its operating budget but also allows us to expand the system to reflect where people live and work today, not 100 years ago.

Here’s my plan: an infrastructure bank for mass transit that I call the “New York City Transit Trust.”

Mayors across the country are recognizing that cities cannot rely solely on state and federal funding for infrastructure. In Chicago, Rahm Emanuel has launched the Chicago Infrastructure Trust to leverage private capital for needed projects.

The New York City Transit Trust will also leverage private dollars, by tying New York City’s infrastructure bank to a dedicated revenue stream – our existing Mortgage Recording Tax -- which now helps fund the MTA”s operating costs.

Today, the Lexington Avenue line on the East Side of Manhattan alone carries more passengers per day than any other subway system in the United States. The Second Avenue Subway (SAS) will alleviate this overcrowding when it opens in 2016. However, today, we’ve funded only one of four phases of the SAS train. The Transit Trust could help us fund phase 2, linking SAS to the Metro-North at 125th Street and providing additional service in East Harlem.

The Transit Trust could provide capital for a range of projects, many of which can improve the lives of thousands of Manhattan residents. We must do more to unlock the potential of the City’s 6 borough: the waterfront. The Transit Trust could allow us to explore how ferry service can help alleviate commuting time for Roosevelt Island and other waterfront neighborhoods as well as improve the region's economy.

In addition, our crosstown buses, which are consistently the slowest in the entire City, could be upgraded with new technology, which has already improved service on 34th Street. Bus Rapid Transit could also be expanded to the West Side, after its successful debut on First and Second Avenues. And the Trust could underwrite a renewal of light rail—once a pillar of public transit in Manhattan—that could speed commutes and improve connectivity throughout the borough. the Trust could benefit riders all over the City by paying for new subway cars and buses and improving safety and reliability by replacing track and upgrading outdated signals.

Of course, if we are going to redirect the Mortgage Recording Tax to the MTA’s capital needs, we have to replace it on the operations side with a new, reliable funding stream.

I believe we should start by getting back what we lost when the City’s commuter tax was repealed in 1999.

The commuter tax, which affects people who work in NYC but live outside the five boroughs, produced billions of dollars in revenue for New York City between 1966 and 1999. If we reinstated it at the same rate as when it was killed 14 years ago, we would raise $725 million a year to support the region’s transportation network.

It’s the right thing to do. Every day, close to a million commuters pour into New York City, using our roads, bridges and rails to get here and relying on our police, fire and sanitation services when they arrive.

All we need is leadership – leadership that recognizes that real investment in transit projects always pays huge dividends down the road, and that there are new, more creative ways to fund those projects.

That’s how you create a true, five-borough transportation network and prepare New York for the next century of growth.

Here's more on the Chicago Infrastructure Bank.

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