Fare hikes? Service cuts?
Who, us?
Seemingly oblivious to their agen cy’s dire financial straits, top Metropolitan Transportation Authority brass strutted off to Washington last Thursday to unveil recommendations from the MTA’s environmental “sustainability” commission – developed by outside consultants at a cost of a cool one million very scarce public dollars.
The commission proposes, among other nonsense, that the MTA:
* Purchase 80 percent of its energy from “renewable” sources by 2050 – largely by supporting proposed wind farms off the New York City coastline.
* “Flex its market power” to “help drive green production throughout the mid-Atlantic region.”
* Develop a “decision matrix” to figure out what to do once global warming raises sea levels (presumably covering Long Island and flooding the subway tunnels, thus rendering the MTA itself somewhat beside the point).
* And give riders the option of paying extra to help fund its “green” initiatives when buying MetroCards, which no doubt they will do with gay abandon.
We’d rather the million bucks had gone to develop a “decision matrix” for regularly emptying subway-station trash barrels – but that wouldn’t have spoken to the real reason for Thursday’s jaunt to the capital: begging for federal bucks.
These days, you see, painting one’s tin cup green is an attractive strategy to access the federal kitty.
To that end, the commission recommends that Congress (what else?) raise gas taxes by 40 cents a gallon and pour the dough into mass transit. (We sure hope the consultants didn’t charge too much for that battered chestnut.)
Still, given the head-scratching nature of most of their proposals, MTA chief Lee Sander and his deputies would probably have done better truly conserving energy – by staying home.
Indeed, apart from some common-sensical energy-saving ideas, the report has little to say about actually running a transit system.
The commission is notably silent, moreover, about what any of this will cost – an important consideration, given that the MTA is eyeing both massive fare hikes and major service cuts.
That’s because the MTA is facing steep upcoming deficits in both its operating and capital budgets that no conceivable federal bailout will ever plug.
But Washington might find Sander’s lamentations easier to take if he spent more time running the trains and less money matrixing decisions.
We know we would.