At the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s February board meeting, MTA Executive Director Katherine Lapp’s made sobering comments about the possible future of the transit system. Noting a capital budget gap in the billions, said that "hard choices" would soon have to be made.

Lapp spelled out an economic domino effect that a weak capital program could create, emphasizing that cuts particularly would impact city, state and MTA workers – many of whom are employed through capital projects – and also hurt private-sector workers upstate, where thousands are employed in plants where rail and subway cars are manufactured.

Ms. Lapp reported that she is currently preparing a list of recommendations for further cutbacks, saying it will be available soon.

New York magazine’s cover story last week, "The Coming Subway Crisis," had similar reflections on where New York transit system is headed. It analyzed the state of the NYC subway system and the need to find funding not only for expansion projects, but critical behind-the-scenes expenses, like upgrading antiquated signal systems and power substations. Citing the recent Chambers Street fire, it noted that bringing the subway to modern technological standards has been a challenge for the MTA, and utterly necessary as current equipment has become obsolete, with replacement parts increasingly harder and more expensive to come by. The incident forced the MTA to dip deeply into its reserve of extra signal relays; another major fire would seriously cripple the system while new relays are manufactured on special order.

Ironically, these warnings came at the same time as news that subway ridership had hit a 50-year high in 2004. NYC Transit carried 7,043,240 passengers on an average weekday, for an annual ridership of 1.4 billion. Newsday reported that the last time ridership was that high was 1953, and that the peak was in 1947, a year when over two billion people entered the system.

The MTA attributed the increases to its aggressive work improving stations, trains and buses – in other words, the capital program.

With fares rising this week and probably in 2006 as well, and increased crowding being one result of higher ridership, it may be a challenge for NYC Transit and the MTA to match the same level of achievement during the next few years. But the impacts of a feeble capital program will not likely be felt at the level of ridership and system conditions for a few years yet. 

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