NYMTA Sets $17B Budget

The New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) Board recently approved the agency’s $17 billion 2020 budget and four-year financial plan.

The proposed budget includes “no budget-driven service cuts and advances the agency’s Transformation Plan to dramatically improve service and deliver significant reforms for taxpayers and commuters.”

The implementation of the Transformation Plan “is changing the way the MTA does business by focusing on core service delivery and is projected to deliver $1.6 billion in savings over the course of the financial plan.”

The MTA budget covers all aspects of operating North America’s largest public transportation network, including:

• Payroll for more than 74,000 employees serving more than 8 million daily customers.
• More than 8,000 subway train runs per weekday.
• More than 20,000 bus runs per weekday.
• More than 1,400 commuter rail runs per weekday.
• More than 900,000 bridge and tunnel crossings per weekday.
• Maintenance, repair and operations at 736 rail and subway stations.
• Safety and security at employee facilities, stations, trains, buses, bridges and tunnels.

“Budgets are not just about the fiscal realities we face, but are also a statement of priorities for the coming year,” said MTA Chairman and CEO Patrick J. Foye. “We recognize the tough fiscal times ahead and this plan addresses them with no budget-driven service cuts, $1.6 billion in savings from the implementation of the transformation plan and continues our aggressive cost-savings measures to focus on core service delivery. Importantly, we don’t shy away from the hard choices in tackling our challenges. The budget builds on the progress we have made in the past year with significant gains in on-time performance, increases in ridership and reductions in major delays across subways, Metro-North and Long Island Rail Road and demonstrates we are headed in the right direction. We have advanced a bold, transformative $54.8 billion Capital Plan, which will further improve service for our 8 million daily customers, modernize our system and finally deliver a 21st century transportation system worthy of New York. The budget approved today by the MTA Board advances our commitment to deliver for New Yorkers.”

“The MTA Board’s approval advances a balanced budget that will provide the essential funding to deliver improved service and reliability for our customers,” said Bob Foran, MTA Chief Financial Officer. “This budget responds to the fiscal challenges we face while avoiding budget-driven service cuts or fare hikes not already scheduled. At the same time, we recognize significant challenges remain and the MTA will continue to find more efficiencies and aggressively cut costs. We are in the midst of an historic transformation that will change the way we do business and yield significant reforms for taxpayers and customers.”

“We are fundamentally reimagining the way the MTA does business by transforming how it’s organized, how it scales up functions that can be centralized in one place, and how it modernizes its processes to maximize results in service for customers while reducing costs,” said MTA Chief Transformation Officer Anthony McCord. “We are efficiently refocusing on the MTA’s core mission: safety, service delivery for riders and routine maintenance. We are rapidly and aggressively moving forward with the steps necessary to implement that transformation.”