From the Communist Party: Solutions to the MTA crisis

Below is the text of a flier, produced by the People's World, that is being distributed at the MTA hearings:

Solutions to the MTA crisis: United we can win!

The MTA cuts are completely and totally avoidable. They hurt the people of our city, and they also an assault on transit workers, and their jobs: at least 400 station agents are being cut, and the authority is pushing now to reopen the contract with TWU Local 100.


City Council Plan – The right direction!

Our city council has put forward a realistic plan to stop the most egregious of the cuts, the ending of free Metrocards for students:

• Reallocate 10 percent of direct stimulus aid to MTA operating expenses (this should generate about $91.5 million)
• Use budgeted PAYGO capital funds for operating ($50 million)
• Reallocate 10 percent of additional stimulus transit aid via state to operating expenses ($30 million).

This plan is, of course, not perfect. Firstly, it doesn’t solve the problem of stopping all the transit cuts. Secondly, allocating money away from the capital fund, which is used for new projects, such as the Second Avenue subway line, is harmful. It holds up important projects, and would stop the creation of jobs that such projects bring about. This is important, and can't be overlooked. Nonetheless, the situation is extreme.


We can go further: Reverse sweetheart deals with big developers

If the City Council plan is the best we can win for now, it has to be supported. But we should, while supporting that, be fighting for something more as well. Reversing and stopping future giveaways to the big developers (who, unfortunately, control the MTA’s Board of Directors and count Mayor Bloomberg among their friends/partners) would be a huge start.

Forest City Ratner, a multi-billion dollar developer that has found hundreds of millions of dollars in public money to finance a private for-profit project called Atlantic Yards has benefited greatly from the MTA: they are selling the Vanderbilt Yards in Brooklyn to Ratner for $100 million, but accepting a down payment of only $20 million and allowing the developer to pay the rest over more than two decades.

Further, in a shady (the most polite term possible) deal, when it decided to sell the property, worked exclusively with Ratner and sold the property well under value. In fact, another company, Extell, actually offered the MTA a full $50 million per year more than Ratner, and offered to pay up front. (We shouldn’t trust the MTA in general: everyone remembers the scandal in which they were found to be keeping two sets of books: one for the public, one that reflected reality! Also, the recent scandal around services never rendered is surely not atypical.)

The MTA should scrap the deal with Ratner and do one of the following (in worst to best order)

• At the very least, demand $100 million upfront from Ratner, or
• Sell the land to Extell for $150 million upfront, or
• Put the property back on the market for what it is currently valued: $271.5 million (by MTA estimates; according to an independent estimates: $900 million)

There are deals like this across the city. Why should we suffer cutbacks while rich developers take millions of dollars of our money?

Tax the rich

First, we have to keep the Fair Share Tax that was won in a recent struggle. Paterson, who may or may not be governor when this flier is being read, has said he would allow the law that increased taxes a tiny bit on the rich to sunset. That simply isn’t fair.

Also, there is going to be a tax increase no matter what happens. The question is who will pay it, millions of working New Yorkers, who are struggling to make ends meet, or the rich and superrich? Eliminating the student Metrocards means each student must spend an extra $2.50 each way to and from school, five times a week, four weeks or so per month, bringing the total to $100.00. Students are in school for about nine months per year, so the cost for one student is $900.00. A family that has two kids in school would spend an additional $200.00 per month, or $1,800.00 yearly—a huge “tax” increase!

Why not increase the tax those who really can afford it? There are sixty billionaires in New York alone (including, of course, our mayor, one of the top 20 richest people on Earth). Taxing them could bring in enough money each year to stop the cuts and even reduce fares.

Why not a tax on all stock transfers over a certain amount (in order to avoid taxing 401k benefits, etc.)?

Bloomberg’s not-yet-presented budget will almost certainly call for slashing education and other important services—and, consequently, jobs. The same goes for Paterson’s current budget proposal.

All of the budgetary problems of the city and the state could be fixed with a permanent or temporary tax on the super-rich, of whom New York has more than virtually anywhere else.

Unity for victory

But, given the dominance of Wall Street and the big developers over the city, the MTA and the state, none of this can be done without uniting all of the forces—TWU Local 100, the UFT, 1199 and the rest of the labor movement; the big churches; progressive elected officials, who have successfully put both the city council and the state legislature up as road blocks to the most egregious service and job cuts; the students, the Working Families Party and the rest of New York’s working people—in a big struggle, the same kind that was victorious just over a year ago in passing the Fair Share Tax.

If we stay divided, we’ll most likely lose these battles.

United, we’ll surely win.

No need for MTA's draconian cuts!

By Dan Margolis
New York State Communist Party

Once again the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is threatening New Yorkers by making draconian cuts to bus and subway service, this time especially for students and seniors. One loses track of how many times the authority has done this over the past few years. While the MTA board usually backs down from the most horrific of its planned abuse of New Yorkers, each time there are at least some cuts, either fare increases or service reductions - or both.

This time is both similar to, and different from, the previous go-arounds. What is different is that the proposed service reductions are even worse than past "doomsday" scenarios. What is the same is that no cuts or fare increases are actually necessary.
Big cuts proposed

New Yorkers are already reeling from fare hikes and service cuts, but now the MTA wants to do more. In December the board voted to axe the W and Z trains, as well as 21 bus routes. They've agreed to cut the number of trains per hour on all the other lines. At night, trains are slotted to run only once every 30 minutes.

But perhaps most egregious of all is the treatment of students and seniors. Under the new rules, students will no longer get free or reduced fare Metrocards, meaning that New York will become one of the only cities in the country that doesn't bother to give its students a way to get to school. This undermines the basic democratic right to an equal education for all (a right that has never been fully realized in this country, and, to the extent that it has been achieved at all, has been severely eroded over the past few decades).
Effects on young people

In this city's school system, young people apply to high schools. That is, they try to get into the best high schools in the city, either a "flagship" school like Stuyvesant or the Bronx School of Science, or a school that specializes in a certain field. A lower-income student who excels at his or her coursework in predominantly African American East New York can apply to Stuyvesant, and, if accepted, receive a stellar education. The questions have to arise: Why can't all of our city schools be as good as Stuyvesant? What about the fact that schools in poorer areas, where students are mainly racially and nationally oppressed, are invariably worse off economically than those in wealthier, whiter neighborhoods? Yes there is, at least, the possibility of applying to and getting into a top-notch school. But getting into a school means nothing if you can't actually get there. Without the free Metrocards, that student in East New York, along with his or her family, will have to decide: Spend the money ($4.50 per day, $22.50 per week, about $90 per month) to get to Stuyvesant, or forego the opportunity and go to the local school. In an area where more than one in five people live in poverty, that extra $90 amounts to a significant monthly wage reduction and is simply impossible.
Unequal impact

This will affect all working people, but the racist dimensions cannot be ignored: African Americans and Latinos will be disproportionally affected. The same goes for seniors, who will have their Access-a-Ride service cut.

Currently, seniors can call Access-a-Ride and get picked up from their home and brought where they need to go. This system has been riddled with problems - talk to any city senior and listen to the stories of incredibly long wait times - but, once again, we have an "at least" situation: at least seniors were able to get around. Now, Access-a-Ride service will be trimmed, and our older residents will be picked up and brought only to the closest accessible subway station. Hopefully their destination subway station won't be an inaccessible one (without an elevator or escalator)! Since most stations are non-accessible, areas around these stations will simply become no-go areas for our older population.

What kind of city treats its younger and older generations like this?
Solutions

The public has learned not to trust the MTA, a shadowy authority known for keeping at least two sets of books. But even if it is true that there is a $383 million deficit in the MTA's budget, there are ways to fix the problem without these abominable cuts.
City Council's plan

The newly elected City Council, more progressive than the old, has started a campaign against the cuts, and has put forward a realistic plan to alleviate a huge portion of the deficit. The plan is as follows:

• Reallocate 10 percent of direct stimulus aid to MTA operating expenses (this should generate about $91.5 million)
• Use budgeted PAYGO capital funds for operating ($50 million)
• Reallocate 10 percent of additional stimulus transit aid via state to operating expenses ($30 million).

This plan is, of course, not perfect. Allocating money away from the capital fund, which is used for new projects, such as the Second Avenue subway line, is harmful. It holds up important projects, and would stop the creation of jobs that such projects bring about. This is important, and can't be overlooked. Nonetheless, the situation is extreme.

If the City Council plan is the best we can win for now, it has to be supported. But we New Yorkers should, while supporting that, be fighting for something more as well.
Giveaways to the rich

As the People's World reported earlier, the MTA has made numerous sweetheart deals with developers, most notably around the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn (itself a miserable debacle pushed by Mayor Bloomberg). That project represents a giveaway of hundreds of millions of dollars to a private developer.

We should demand that this deal be canceled.

Why should some private business be given tens of millions to make hundreds of millions, while our brothers and sisters, especially the oldest and youngest, are made to suffer?
Put the burden on those who can afford it

We should demand that the Fair Share Tax, won only recently, not be allowed to sunset, and that it be increased. Instead of essentially taxing students' families a huge percentage of their income by cutting the reduced-fare Metrocard, why not tax the wealthiest few, those who can afford it, directly? For the same reason, there should be another surcharge on the wealthiest New Yorkers.

The fight is not over. We have until June before these cuts are scheduled to go into effect. On our side is the City Council, tens of thousands of students who are organizing, a number of state senators and Assembly members, Transport Workers Union Local 100 (which itself would share a special pain if these cuts go through) - in short, the vast majority of New Yorkers.

We can stop these cuts and put the whole progressive movement in a better position. The question is how big of a victory we can achieve.

City students on Facebook, in the streets over MTA cuts

Public high school students, as well as teachers and parents, are organizing in new ways against a proposal by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which runs the city's buses and trains, to take away free-and reduced-price Metrocards currently issued to students.

"Yeah, this is insanely crazy," reads a message from high school student Aleize Jarrett-via Facebook. "I go to school from Bronx to Brooklyn everyday, two fares per day. I don't want to spend $4.50 or whatever just to get to school. It's already worse, since teacher's jobs are getting cut."

People from across the city are in a rage, but young people have taken the lead in organizing. A number of new Facebook groups have sprung up in the past few weeks, including one, "Protest the MTA getting rid of STUDENT METROCARDS," which currently has nearly 100,000 members.

Out of that group, one successful protest of 200 students has already taken place and more are planned.

"The student organizing has been incredibly impressive," Working Families Party spokesperson Dan Levitan told the World. "You've got students using the tools that they use every day in their own life to really organize a rapid response."

"They've used the tools that connect to them to organize themselves," Levitan continued. "They had a protest with hundreds of people that was put together in just a couple of days."

The WFP is fighting the cuts via a more traditional route, through a petition drive. Launched in December, it already has about 10,000 signatures.

Levitan noted that, were the changes to go through, there would be a huge disparity between city students and those in the rest of the state, where, like in the rest of the country, students are picked up by yellow buses and brought to school for free.

While cutting free rides for students has drawn the most attention, the MTA is also drawing riders' ire by pushing other cuts: two subway lines and dozens of bus routes are also on the chopping block.

After a demonstration, New York City Council speaker Christine Quinn called the cuts "a slap in the face to hard working people across our city."

Also slated to go are services for the disabled and the elderly.

"They're going to significantly scale back Access-a-Ride for the disabled. Right now you can call Access-a-Ride and they'll take you basically anywhere you want to go. Under the new thing, they'll just take you to the nearest accessible subway station, and then it's just like, ‘good luck.'"

The MTA voted on the cuts in December, but they aren't slated to take effect until June, giving New Yorkers time to organize.

The students are planning another demonstration on January 11, and the city council is vowing to continue the fight, starting with their own petition drive.

Levitan says that he is optimistic: "This fight continues, and as it gets closer to the time when these cuts get implemented, I think you're going to see that really take off."

By Dan Margolis

NYC transit cuts byproducts of giveaways to the rich

Once again, city straphangers are being threatened by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which claims that it is out of money and has to cut service on the city's bus and subway lines-again. But the MTA is giving hundreds of millions of dollars to big developers, say critics; still others see the cuts as a political ploy.

This morning the authority's board approved sweeping cuts, aimed at filling a deficit of nearly $400 million, affecting just about every rider in the city. All services are set to be scaled back, with less trains and buses, especially during non-peak hours. In addition, two entire subway lines-the W and the Z-are to be eliminated, as well as numerous bus lines.

Most controversial, however, is a plan to eliminate reduced price and free fares for city students. While in most cities across the country, students rely on big yellow buses to pick them up and drop them off at school, local students often have to take a train or bus to a school in a far-off area. Consequently, many students will be left without transportation to or from school

At a hearing before the MTA's board voted this morning, City Council member Charles Barron asked, "You sit here and bring anxieties to young children. What do you want them to do? Jump the turnstiles and turn them into criminals?"

Bill Thompson, the city's comptroller said in a statement before the vote that the board's move would unfairly harm students. "The MTA has a duty to exhaust all possible options before these cuts are considered," he said. "I urge all the members of the MTA Board to vote ‘No' at tomorrow's meeting."

The MTA leadership argued that it needs to save money after Albany cut $143 million in funding, and payroll taxes earmarked for transit were to bring in $100 million less than expected. They also blamed the workers who operate the system themselves, arguing that money awarded to employees would add to the debt.

But it's not overly generous benefits for the workers that is putting the MTA into the red, said Council Member Letitia James, D-Brooklyn, but giveaways to rich developers.

Forest City Ratner, a multi-billion dollar developer that has found hundreds of millions of dollars in public money to finance a private for-profit project called Atlantic Yards has also benefited greatly from the MTA-they are selling the Vanderbilt Yards, in Brooklyn, to Ratner for $100 million, but accepting a down payment of only $20 million and allowing the developer to pay the rest over more than two decades.

"Forest City Ratner should pay the $100 million owed now for the purchase of the Vanderbilt Yards," James said.

James further explained that "for unclear reasons" the MTA, when it decided to sell the property, worked exclusively with Ratner and sold the property well under value. "unclear" seems to be code for "shady," as many believe that the whole project is a shady deal between developers and the city. The MTA board itself is dominated by big developers and their representatives.

In fact, another company, Extell, actually offered the MTA a full $50 million per year more than Ratner, and offered to pay up front.

"Had the MTA accepted a higher bidder," James said, "they would have received their funds upfront and their current budgetary gap could have been cut almost in half."

"Cancel the deal," she continued, noting that the property has actually been valued at $271.5 million.

"Something simply doesn't sit right with the community about the preferential treatment that Forest City Chairman Bruce Ratner has received from the MTA. Now it appears as though MTA customers and specifically our youth - the future of the City-may pay dearly to support the project of a multi million dollar developer that the community doesn't want to begin with," said Council Member James.

New Yorkers are clearly enraged by these cuts, which are on top of cuts earlier in the year, and a fare increase, and another fare increase, of 7.5 percent, is scheduled for 2011. While the board has voted on the newest round of cuts, none are scheduled to take place until June. In that time, New Yorkers, including elected officials and transit workers themselves, are likely to rally support to undo the recent round of cuts.

By Dan Margolis

Communist Party Statement on MTA Fare Hike Vote

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority voted 12-1 to raise fares by more than 20 percent and to impose dramatic service cuts, including the elimination of two subway lines and dozens of bus routes.

But their vote is far from the final word.

These are nothing more than empty scare tactics; no one expects such draconian measures to actually pass. The MTA is cynically attempting to manipulate public opinion in order to push Albany to enact the Ravitch Plan, which would also raise fares by a smaller amount and impose new tolls on the East and Harlem River bridges.

Why should we choose between bad and horrible? Why should working people pay more to commute into Manhattan? They surely aren’t driving in for fun or because they like to drive—there just isn’t enough public transit in many of the outer boroughs, Long Island and Westchester.

What about the stimulus money? They are using it in such a way that it’s not going to benefit the budget problem in our region. Instead they are using it for pet projects, like the extension of the 7 line, something only of interest to the big developers.

The MTA should open its books so that the public can see exactly how much money they need, how much is wasted or spent on projects that can wait.

The federal stimulus money gives $1.4 billion to the MTA, and $24.4 billion for the state and city. We need to set up a public control council for the use of all this money, to make sure that it’s used in the interest of regular, working people and not for the pet projects of the billionaires and big developers.

Also, New York straphangers pay a higher percentage of operating costs for our mass transit system than almost any other city in the country. Money from the general funds should be directed to transit, and a tax on those making more than $250,000 yearly would help fund that and other necessary services.

The MTA itself should be radically altered, so that its leadership represents the people of New York. Look at its board. Its voting members are mainly a bunch of big developers and Wall Street financiers, the kind of people who have brought disaster to the U.S. economy—does anyone really think that these people can represent New York’s working population? The board should be more representative of New Yorkers, and should include labor, as well as organizations of the racially and nationally oppressed, and people involved in the fights for better education, health care, really affordable housing and against foreclosures.

If the MTA board wants to do what’s right for New Yorkers, they should resign.

MTA: No fare hikes or service cuts!

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority plans draconian service cuts, while raising fares and imposing additional costs on those who commute by car. This is the wrong solution at the wrong time.

It is unacceptable for the MTA to force commuters to pay more—for less—at a time when they are already feeling the pinch in a thousand other ways: the housing crisis, the increased threat of unemployment, mountains of debt, and so on. Higher fares will mean that more people will have to make a choice between medicine or the bus, food or the subway.

Because of the high price of Manhattan real estate, many working families live far away, in the outer boroughs, Long Island, or elsewhere. Many of these areas have no public transportation to speak of, and, consequently, these people, pushed to the outskirts by poverty, have to drive to work. Raising tolls or even creating new tolls on the East River bridges will hurt them directly.

Service cuts will mean that thousands of New Yorkers will shoulder an increased burden, and greater danger when trying to get to and from their jobs or schools.

The current deficit at the MTA must not be resolved on the backs of working people.

The plan to lay off thousands of workers and cut expenses is in stark contrast to President-elect Barack Obama’s policy statements, in which he argues the need to pump money into the real economy in order to maintain necessary services and ensure that the financial crisis isn’t solved on the backs of working people. Obama has called for major public works programs to restore public infrastructure and green the economy. By employing more people who can therefore spend more on necessities, increased government spending can only stimulate the faltering economy.

Conversely, laying off thousands of MTA workers will play a part in deepening the financial local financial crisis.

In keeping with President-elect Obama’s plan to rebuild infrastructure, the MTA, to further stimulate the should employ more people and direct more resources to improve service, keep the rail system up to date, and build certain necessary projects, like the Second Avenue subway line. After all, there is hardly any infrastructure in the region more major than our transportation system. Without it, the city and metropolitan region would fail.

The argument that the proposed extra costs will reduce pollution is, at best, spurious. Though thousands of people would rather take public transit into the city, in many areas, it is simply not available. To reduce pollution, more service, not less, is needed. There are wide swaths of Brooklyn and Queens that are without rail service.

The MTA’s operating and capital investment budgets must not only be funded, but expanded. This is not impossible, even in the current financial environment. First, the MTA must not waste money through sweetheart deals with big developers. A colossal amount of money was wasted when the MTA agreed to sell air rights to the Atlantic Yards to Forest City Ratner for $50 million, though the independently assessed value was as high as $900 million. Even when another firm offered a higher bid, the MTA chose to go with Forest City Ratner. Other projects, like the proposed extension of the 7 subway line, which is essentially a multi-billion dollar gift to the developers, could be postponed.

The state and city should make sure that the MTA can make up its shortfall; where it can’t it they should go into debt if necessary, borrow as much as is needed. Instead of balancing the deficit on the backs of working people, the state could finally impose the millionaires' tax to fund both the MTA and other city and state programs. They must do whatever is needed to ensure that the MTA doesn’t help to further deteriorate the lives of working people in and around New York. It’s likely that money will come from the federal government in the next administration; even if it doesn’t, borrowing and spending are the only responsible way forward.

The people of New York can’t afford anything else.

By Dan Margolis
for the New York State Communist Party