Officials Worried Over NYC Transit Funding

The screen above Ilga Bobilova's head in the Sixth Avenue subway station said there would be a train to Brooklyn in two minutes, followed by another in four minutes.
    
"I think it is helpful,'' Bobilova said. "You don't have to rush. You can see when there is a train coming.''
    
The technology to tell riders when to expect a train is common in Europe and Asia and has long existed in U.S. transit systems such as California's BART, but it's in its infancy in New York.
    
And some New York officials fear that such upgrades could stall if the Metropolitan Transportation Authority fails to get realistic funding for capital improvements. To install the screens throughout the century-old subway system's 468 stations will take an estimated 35 years, making it the kind of project that could be vulnerable without a commitment to long-term planning.
    
"If we ever want to get out of this constant increase in fares and subsidies we've got to make the investment,'' Mayor Michael Bloomberg warned earlier this month.
    
Bloomberg and others say they fear that without funding for capital improvements, the transit system could slide back into disrepair instead of expanding and modernizing.
    
"In the 1970s, we stopped investing in the MTA, and it had a devastating impact,'' said Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. "We just cannot afford to make that mistake again.''
    
Advocates cheered when the state Legislature passed a $2.26 billion bailout bill that will avert deep service cuts and 23 percent fare increases in the city's subway and bus system as well as suburban commuter trains.
    
But the deal hammered out by the Legislature left a gap that worries many onlookers: Funding is identified for only the first two years of the MTA's $30 billion five-year capital plan.
    
Under the plan, approved by the MTA's board last week, the base subway and bus fare will rise from $2 to $2.25, and the cost of a monthly pass will go from $81 to $89. Commuter rail fares will go up an average of 10 percent.
    
Facing a budget gap that it blamed on rising debt service costs and declining revenue from real estate taxes, the MTA was poised to raise fares by twice as much before the Legislature approved the bailout.
    
The $2.25 fare was seen as a reasonable compromise, though it won't last. Increases averaging 7.5 percent are anticipated for 2011 and 2013.
    
The transit system bottomed out during the fiscal crisis of the 1970s when subway trains broke down and were buried under graffiti.
    
Since then, the MTA has struggled not just to keep the trains running but to bring them into the 21st century, a unending task as different parts of the sprawling system break down at different times.
    
The authority now has two budgets, an operating budget for day-to-day expenses and a capital budget for big-ticket items such as new trains and buses and the long-planned Second Avenue subway line.
    
Some recent capital projects include the purchase of 1,100 fuel-efficient hybrid buses and the renovation of 36 subway stations in the last three years.
    
Charles Seaton, a spokesman for New York City Transit, the MTA agency that runs city subways and buses, said the lifespan of a subway car is 40 years but some cars still in service are pushing 45.
    
Those cars are clunkers compared to the newest in the fleet, the R160 cars with high-tech features like a liquid crystal display screen that constantly updates riders about the train's progress. The MTA has ordered 1,662 of them for $2.87 billion.
    
Equally striking is the contrast between just-renovated stations and dreary ones that are overdue for a makeover.
    
Renovated Bronx stations on the 2, 4 and 5 lines have stained glass windows worthy of Tiffany. The $527 million South Ferry station that opened in March at the tip of Manhattan features "See It Split, See It Change,'' a $1 million-plus art installation with silhouettes of trees and a mosaic map of Manhattan.
    
The electronic signs that tell riders how long their wait will be are so far only on the L line that runs from the West side of Manhattan at 14th Street through Brooklyn.
    
The future of that and other projects will depend on the MTA's ability to secure funding for them in a still shaky economy.
    
"It's very hard to plan without knowing how much capital resources you're going to have in the future,'' said Richard Ravitch, the former MTA chairman who headed a panel that drafted an earlier version of the bailout plan. "Over the long term without adequate investment the system starts down the slippery slope again.''