Tax Break For Drivers Can Lead To Mass Transit Chaos

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The capital program for MTA, or the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, is recently running out of time to devise a new plan for ways to allocate funds to maintain and expand the transit system. However, the main issue is regarding how exactly the state plans on funding it. One way to decrease transit usage is to increase driving. Because of the increase dependence on debts for financial costs, a state senator plans on providing a tax incentive to drive. The capital program is solely relying on debts and is resulting in higher prices for transit users.

Although the need for a funding plan is necessary, a hearing on January 10^th backfired on that plan. During the hearing, many people supported the Move NY fair tolling plan which aims to reduce tolls and ultimately results in a uniform toll to drive into Manhattan below 60^th street. This proposed idea would help finance the MTA capital program, but the estimated $1.5 billion isn’t enough. Additional costs are necessary for the MTA capital program due to the deadly Metro-North derailment and post-Sandy repair initiatives.

Furthermore, for areas that aren’t served by the subway frequently, initiatives to enforce Bus Rapid Transit projects are being heavily focused on. The primary argument against this is that the roads are already highly congested and removing lanes from highly populated streets would only result in chaos. Even though this argument has brought up a good point, a more popular suggestion derived from a proposed law offers pre-tax transit benefits to employees. Hopefully, this will result in increased funds specifically for MTA so New Yorkers could continue using their transit system.

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