Transit Funding

Andrew Cuomo is balancing the state's books on the backs of New York City straphangers. Under his draft budget, the MTA would receive $65 million less from the state’s general fund than it did in 2016, at the same time as riders chip in about $300 million more via the upcoming fare hike.

Five years ago, Cuomo promised to allocate $320 million annually to the MTA to make up for cutting one of the agency's dedicated revenue streams. At the time, advocates warned that Cuomo wouldn't keep his promise for long. They were right: This year the governor's draft budget calls for a $65 million cut to MTA funding.

Governor Andrew Cuomo's Department of Transportation has billions of dollars at its disposal to spend on capital projects but doesn't tell the public what it plans to do with the money. A bipartisan bill in both houses of the state legislature aims to change that.

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.

Add the Independent Budget Office to the transit advocates and New York City electeds who aren't buying Governor Andrew Cuomo’s claim that the state has met its commitment to fund the MTA. The IBO sums up the reasons not to take Cuomo at his word in a short brief released this week.

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.

Rumors are swirling that the long-awaited answer to the key question vexing the MTA -- how the state’s $8.3 billion share of the unfunded portion of the MTA capital plan will be paid for -- is that dreaded four-letter word: D-E-B-T.