MTA

You can tell Governor Cuomo doesn't get on a New York City bus unless it's for a photo-op about on-board USB ports.

After spending the first half of the year touting frills like Wi-Fi and charging ports on buses, Governor Cuomo finally delivered some news this morning that will make a real difference to transit riders. The MTA plans to buy hundreds of open gangway subway cars, which can carry more passengers and help relieve crowding on maxed-out lines.

There's a huge disconnect between the way Governor Andrew Cuomo talks about transit improvements and the service upgrades that transit riders actually want to see.

NY1's Zack Fink reports that last week's Albany budget deal raised the MTA's debt ceiling to $55 billion (about one-third higher than the previous cap of $41 billion). That's $14 billion more in potential borrowing that, in all likelihood, straphangers will pay off in the form of higher fares.

The next time you hear a friend talking about the time their train stayed still for 30 minutes because of signal problems, or the time they waited 45 minutes for a bus then watched four buses pull up simultaneously, or the time they almost got pushed onto the tracks because the platform was so crowded, point them to this video from the Riders Alliance. It's 30 seconds of truth about Andrew Cuomo.

Straphangers can’t pay the MTA with an IOU, so why should Governor Andrew Cuomo get away with it?

Here's something NYC representatives should be screaming about in Albany: Governor Cuomo's budget allocates more than $3 billion to roads and bridges but nothing to the MTA's capital program, according to an analysis released today by the Riders Alliance. The discrepancy amounts to a gigantic transfer of resources from the New York City region to the statewide road program.

Governor Andrew Cuomo’s executive budget includes no new funds for the MTA capital program -- a brazen departure from the funding pledge Cuomo made just a few months ago. Transit advocates laid out the broken promises at a press conference in Brooklyn this morning.