“We’re trying to balance making sure people can get where they’re going and have good service with the need to do the work that makes the system better long-term,” MTA Chair & CEO Janno Lieber mentioned on Jan. 5, 2025, the primary day of congestion pricing.
Marc A. Hermann / MTA
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It’s a brand new 12 months, however the MTA has the identical objective for 2025: ship protected, dependable and reasonably priced service for the hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers who experience mass transit each day.
Precedence one has all the time been security. We’ve labored intently with Governor Hochul, Mayor Adams and the NYPD to drive down crime to beneath even pre-pandemic ranges, and this 12 months, we now have extra buy-in than ever earlier than on reforming the legal justice system to maintain harmful people out of the transit system.
These adjustments – mixed with a continued sturdy police presence underground – ought to assist us transfer the needle and encourage extra New Yorkers to make use of transit.
However at the same time as we look forward to extra knowledge on the impression of the congestion aid toll on journey patterns, road security, and air high quality, we’re not losing any time attending to work enhancing transit. Final week, we celebrated one of many first investments to come back from {dollars} generated by congestion pricing: the acquisition of 265 new zero-emission buses.
And there’s much more to come back – we at present have energetic procurements for Second Avenue Subway Section 2, sign modernization on the Fulton Avenue line, and our subsequent bundle of ADA accessible stations, to call just a few upcoming initiatives.
The brand new MTA’s mission is to make sure that each penny is spent correctly. This isn’t the identical company that allow schedules and budgets balloon unchecked for many years.
In truth, the MTA’s finances in actual phrases is 3% decrease now than earlier than COVID, even with vital will increase to service on the subway and LIRR, transformative bus community redesigns underway or accomplished in all 5 boroughs, and the opening of a brand-new terminal at Grand Central Madison.
We need to guarantee riders expertise financial savings too – with OMNY fare-capping on the subway and buses, plus decrease fares on commuter railroads for intracity journey by way of the Metropolis Ticket program. And because of reductions carried out throughout COVID, Metro-North and LIRR month-to-month ticketholders proceed to pay much less now than they did in 2019.
Right here’s to protecting that momentum going for a historic 2025.
Janno Lieber is MTA chair and CEO.
