Quote:
Originally Posted by Busy Bee
"Dream Small" should be the MTA's official motto.
The culture for half a century has not been on expansion but on just maintaining a system that was falling apart as the rest of the world was expanding and building new at a feverish pace. The priority for decades has not been to maintain and exceed past a "state of good repair" but just to reach one.
What the MTA needs most is for the federal government to understand that NYC is our nations alpha city and the face of the country for many around the world. It deserves a first class publuc transportation system which requires massive modernixation and expansion. A 10 year 100 billion grant for the MTA would do wonders and could deliver needed projects like the TriboroRX, Utica subway, Queens superexpress, JFK express to lower Manhattan, Red Hook 1 train, full SAS completion including one or two Bronx branches, Fordham Rd cross Bronx line, etc etc. And im not even talking about M-N or LIRR.
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Per
https://longislandweekly.com/how-the...ation-funding/
The FTA annually provides $1.4 billion in capital grants to the MTA. This is accomplished under the FTA Transit Award Management System (known as “TrAMS”) used to award and manage federal grants. The MTA currently manages an active portfolio of federally funded capital improvement projects worth more than $12 billion.
Per
https://www.transportation.gov/sites...-compliant.pdf
The Federal Transit Administration’s (FTA) FY 2019 Budget requests $11.2 billion.
The FY 2019 Budget requests $9.9 billion for Transit Formula Grants
FYI, the FTA annual budget is around $11.2 Billion. So MTA already gets 12.5 % of it. It's really 14% of the $9.9 Billion allocated with FTA grants.
So how much of the USA population lives in MTA service's area?
Let's use Greater New York's CSA as reported by Wiki, around 21.6 million while being extremely generous and including northern New Jersey as far south as Princeton, which the MTA does not serve.
21.6/328 = 6.5%
Surprisingly, the MTA gets twice as much FTA funding than it's share of the USA population. What the MTA does with what it gets matters. But the idea it does not get its' fair share from Uncle Sam is wrong.
Looking at it from another point of view, transit ridership, we might find things completely different.
MTA total ridership was 2.658 billion in FY 2017 per Wiki
USA total transit ridership was 10.15 billion in FY 2017 per APTA
2.658/10.15 = 26%
So one could make the argument that the MTA gets half the funding it should based upon ridership.
I think the balance is just about right! Twice as much per population, but half as much per ridership.
But we have failed to include the FTA grants to NJT, of which most of its' services are within Greater New York.
Per
https://www.app.com/story/opinion/co...es/5333964002/
NJT is a direct recipient of Federal Transit Administration funding. This averages close to $700 million annually to support NJT bus, commuter rail, light rail and para transit systems. NJT currently manages an active portfolio of ongoing capital projects and programs contained within $2.6 billion open federal grants. Wiki reports 268 million passengers in FY 2018. Those extra funding grants and ridership totals would add much to the discussion.
Some additional math:
1,400 million + 700 million = 2100 million or $2.1 Billion
2,658 million + 268 million = 2926 million or 2.9 billion passengers
2.1/9.9 = 29% of FTA's annual funding grants
2.9/ 10.15 = 28% of the USA ridership.
Now funding grants from the FTA basically matches MTA and NJT share of total USA transit ridership.
Someone somewhere will reach a different conclusion finding additional data.
How anyone could suggest the FTA give more grant money to just the MTA alone that is more than what the total the FTA gives out annually is beyond me? $9.9 billion annual in FTA grants is less than $100 billion over a 10 year span, or $10 billion annual for 10 years. Do you really believe the rest of the nation will sit idle with zero funding for 10 years?
I suppose keeping the same allocation scheme Congress has set up to spread the grants out somewhat fairly nationally with their funding formulas, to give MTA an additional $10 billion annual for 10 years, we would have to increase the FTA funding grant program 300%, so there would also be an additional $20 billion annual for the rest of the country. Do you see how quickly a $10 billion annual increase turned into a $30 billion annual increase?
Than we must discuss whether or not New York City is America's Alpha City, your term not mine.
Per Wiki, In 2015, the NYC CSA had a GDP of $1.83 trillion
In 2017 LA CSA had a GDP of $1.252 trillion
In 2019, Chicago CSA had a GDP of $707 billion
How Alpha is that when the next two CSA's sum to a equivalent value?