The airlines aren’t the only transportation entity waiting for help from a long-awaited second federal stimulus package.
The New York City subway system, which moves hundreds of thousands of riders per day, including tourists visiting The Big Apple, is facing drastic cutbacks in service and workers.
According to multiple reports, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), which runs the system, is facing a $12 billion deficit and is considering laying off more than 9,000 workers and severely cutting back on the number of trains that make up the world’s largest mass transit system.
“This is the worst financial crisis in the MTA’s history by orders of magnitude,” said MTA chairman Patrick J. Foye. “The MTA has faced periodic financial challenges over the years – 9/11, (Hurricane) Sandy, the financial crisis. But nothing like this, ever.”
According to MarketWatch analysis, during the worst days of the virus in New York City in the spring, ridership dropped by 90 percent and is currently still 70 percent lower than its usual rates, a devastating blow for a system that relies heavily on fares to cover operating costs. A good portion of those riders are tourists who, like many city-dwellers, find it far easier and less expensive to traverse Manhattan and its outer boroughs this way than to do so by taxi or Uber.
And, frankly, many visitors find the subway system something of a tourist attraction unto itself.
To keep the subway system functional, the MTA has lobbied for $12 billion worth of funding in the second stimulus package after receiving $4 billion in the first round of federal aid as part of the CARES Act in March. But a second round of aid has been hung up in Congress over partisan politics.
The MTA Board is expected to discuss the cost-saving plan Wednesday and will vote on it in December.
“As we are required to enact a balanced budget and the feds have yet to act on another COVID-19 relief package that would help mass transit, we are moving ahead hoping for the best but preparing for the worst,” MTA Spokesman Ken Lovett told NBC4 New York. “If the federal aid comes through in that amount, we will adjust our spending plan accordingly.”
TWU Local 100 President Tony Utano, who runs one of the unions whose workers service the subways, called the budget proposal “an outrageous and cowardly surrender to the Coronavirus, and a slap in the face of every transit worker.”
Even if normal ridership returns by 2023, the MTA still projects budget deficits totaling more than $19 billion through 2024.
