Beneath the MTA Shuffle Lie the Same Old Doubts

In taking stock of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the temptation is to reduce expectations so much that almost any change is welcomed and not analyzed too closely. As in “Johnny’s finally doing his homework, so let’s worry later about how well he’s doing it.”

On Monday, for example, temporary MTA chief Julian Burke unveiled what may be the authority’s first plan for a truly balanced operating budget. But while that amounts, as Burke puts it, to “a serious start at changing a whole system of thinking within the organization,” the old standard of whether the choices will work still applies.

Burke’s most encouraging step has been to eliminate unrealistic revenue projections. That revenue inflation was part of a pattern of avoiding tough choices and passing the matter on to the next fiscal year, or to the next chief executive.

Burke’s next good idea was trimming the MTA work force by 167 positions, including 67 actual employees, but the question is whether those cuts are deep enough. Burke further proposes bus system cuts next spring, with less frequent rush-hour service on 24 lines, no weekend service on eight lines and shortened routes on four lines. But any such decision on bus service is contingent on whether the MTA meets a strict Dec. 31 deadline, part of a court consent decree, to reduce overcrowding of bus riders during rush hours. The authority’s ability to do so remains to be proved.

Also, Burke suggests increased fares for the MTA’s rail system, hoping the riders lost to a 50-cent boost would return before long. Here, the MTA’s original decision to use a flat-rate fare collected on the honor system has come back to haunt the agency. Under it, a 22-mile rail trip costs the same as a two-mile ride, and the price for that brief ride would grow to $1.85.

MTA officials continue to say that it would be too costly to change the fare system. The fact remains, however, that other rail systems offer a low flat rate for short rides and charge riders more for longer trips and for trips during rush hours. Fare increases based on that standard would be much more palatable, particularly to short-trip riders.

Burke has presented the MTA’s first honest budget. But to give more people seats on the bus (as the courts have required), and head off an exodus among rail riders now happy in theirs, will surely require more empty desks and fewer paychecks at MTA headquarters.