Study: Legal weed could soothe NYC subway funding ills

Written by Railway Age Staff
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Wikipedia/Jennifer Martin

Don’t bogart that money from legalized marijuana, New York – pass it over to the subway to help pay for the system’s repairs and upgrades.

An analysis by New York University’s Rudin Center for Transportation says pot could generate as much as $670 million a year in tax revenue for the cash-strapped transit system.

New York City Transit President Andy Byford rolled out a request for $40 billion over 10 years to modernize the subway, but so far high-level decision-makers have not warmed to the prospect of joint-by-joint repairs.

New York lawmakers have yet to decide whether to follow the lead of other states on marijuana, but such a measure could ease increasing pain at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which is projecting a billion-dollar deficit by 2022 despite a proposed fare hike proposed to take effect in March.

 

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