MTA CEO speaks at York College

Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) Executive Director and CEO Elliot Sander called the challenges ahead of the organization dramatic and put the need to acquire funds to implement capital projects at the top of its list.
Sander, speaking at a York College Executive Leadership Breakfast on Friday morning, April 4, said the group plans to cut its budget by 6 percent this year, but he is also very concerned about 2009 and 2010 with difficult economic times likely.
“Probably the greatest challenge is to get the MTA through the next few years,” Sander said.
Currently, the MTA is in the midst of a five-year, $22 billion capital plan and during the breakfast, Sander talked about the East Side Access project, which would provide a direct and faster trip between Long Island and east midtown Manhattan and relieve overcrowding on Queens Boulevard and Flushing line trains.
Sander said that the MTA hoped to raise money from a congestion-pricing proposal that was shot down in Albany on Monday, April 7.
The plan, which would have charged cars $8 and trucks $21 to enter Manhattan south of 60th Street during the weekdays from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. in order to reduce congestion, improve air quality in the area and raise money for mass transit.
“We have been supportive of congestion pricing institutionally because I would say we are desperate for the funding it would create,” Sander said.
However, he said if congestion pricing were defeated, the MTA would have to look towards city, state and federal legislators to find money for the projects.
The MTA provides service for 8.3 million transit customers and 1.4 million bridge and tunnel users daily. It also carries one third of all the nation’s users of mass transit, and two thirds of all the nation’s rail riders.
In addition, Sander spoke about ridership increasing by 40 percent since 1996 and the prospects of one million more people living in the city by 2030 as two reasons why the MTA must find funding for its capital projects.