Invest in Public Transportation

Testimony to the NYS Commission on MTA Financing

Brad Lander, Pratt Center for Community Development

September 15, 2008

Chairman Ravitch, members of the commission, thank you for the opportunity to testify on this critical issue. As you know, robust public transit is the foundation of New York’s economy, the single most important element in developing a sustainable region, and essential to providing opportunity to millions of people across lines of income, race, and neighborhood.

You have a difficult task before you – how to provide a sound fiscal future for a system that was neglected for over a decade, in a time of rising energy costs and economic uncertainty – and one upon which millions of us depend.

It would, of course, be politically attractive to grandstand against any new or higher taxes, blast critical infrastructure and transportation projects as pork, and call for offshore drilling by Big Oil as the cure for what ails us. We are proud instead to live in a state that understands the critical value, to all New Yorkers, of a state that invests in public transportation as a key to a strong economy, a foundation for broadly-shared prosperity, and a sustainable future.

We urge that you include the following steps in your report:

1. Invest in a robust Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) network for New York City and ultimately the metropolitan region.

While you must of course focus on financing mechanisms, we believe that one of the most important steps you can take to address the MTA’s operating shortfall while improving service for a growing region is to establish bus rapid transit (BRT) as a very high priority for the MTA in the years to come. BRT is extremely cost effective, can be done quickly and deliver benefits incrementally, and is the best way to serve “extreme commuters” (the 750,000 NYC residents, two-thirds of whom earn less than $35,000 per year, plus many more in the suburbs, with commutes of over 1 hour each way).

We urge you to build upon plans put forth by the NYC Department of Transportation to roll out six select bus routes by 2011, but to work with them to do so more rapidly, to connect and expand the network, and to implement a full network of BRT routes. COMMUTE! (coalition of community-based, environmental justice, and civic organizations) has put forth a plan for such a network, which we are including.

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