One hundred days into his tenure as Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) chair and CEO, Jay Walder pledged a “top-to-bottom overhaul” of his agency’s business plan.
In a January 15 report titled “Making Every Dollar Count,” Walder and his MTA outline an ambitious proposal to revamp an agency that is admittedly inefficient and lacking in the customer service technologies that have been adopted by other transit systems around the globe.
“When I started in October, I expected this report to talk about plans for finally starting to catch up with the rest of the world, and it does,” Walder said in a statement. “But I barely had my feet on the ground when the state’s economic crisis hit the MTA hard. It’s clear that my first priority right now must be to attack the MTA’s cost structure and ensure we are using every dollar effectively.”
Chief among Walder’s priorities is to streamline the MTA and its seven operating agencies by consolidating their corporate communications, customer service and administrative departments wherever possible. But the MTA also aims to reduce the costs of providing service, scrutinizing its $500 million in annual overtime pay, its fare collection procedures – 15 cents on every dollar collected – and its product inventory.
The MTA will also review its five-year plan for selecting and building capital projects to ensure that the projects improve efficiency and reduce day-to-day agency expenditures. According to the report, a sluggish economy “will not be an excuse for standing still.”
Within the next year, the agency aims to establish faster bus service by keeping bus lanes clear. Signs in 75 subway stations – and ultimately, in 2011, all stations along the No. 1-6 lines – will announce the arrival times of the next two trains. The agency hopes to unveil a similar bus arrival signage system beginning in mid-2011.
Meanwhile, critics continue protesting proposed MTA service cuts to a range of bus and subway lines, including many in Queens. But Walder and his MTA remain steadfast.
“Today we established high goals for the MTA in a difficult time,” he said in announcing his agency overhaul, “but we must succeed.”
