When the MTA 2000-2004 capital program was approved in Albany, transit advocates, newspaper reporters and others pointed out that a massive reckoning would eventually come due. The program was built on new bond issues and refinancing of outstanding debt — a huge spate of borrowing that the NY Times said was the largest sale of municipal bonds in history (that’s all of recorded human history, not just MTA history). In April 2000, the Straphangers Campaign’s Gene Russianoff said the huge debt could "make it harder to build the Second Avenue subway because you have to find another seven or eight or nine billion for it in the next 10 or 15 years in the context of an agency that has mortgaged every stick of furniture it has on the property" (see MTR #266).

The reckoning is now here. The MTA can’t borrow any more but has huge needs. The growing sense of inevitability last week about pending MTA fare increases was just one of a multiplying number of signs that the transit funding crisis is at hand:

MTA officials said last week that slower than expected rider growth added urgency to its plan to increase rates for a variety of NYC Transit and commuter fare options. The hikes are likely to be approved by year’s end and hit riders early in 2005.

MTA leaders told legislators they are looking past the 2005 fare hike to worse fare hikes and escalating operating budget deficits in 2006 and future years.

Service cuts could worsen the operating budget crisis by driving riders away. Transit watchers said NYC Transit’s emerging plan to cut off peak bus service would be devastating. The agency laid out service guidelines that will cut service next year and further reduce bus frequencies in 2006.

Legislative leaders’ responses to the MTA capital program, which is about 75% unfunded, have been to criticize the proposal and the MTA in general without providing any real commentary about its contents or thoughts about paying for it. Power of the purse? There is no indication at all that the NY Assembly or Senate is working on a transit financing plan. But only a few in the media so far have pointed out that everyone in Albany signed off on the huge 2000-2004 transit borrowing plan that created the transit debt crisis they now face. 

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