October 27, 2025 • 21 mins
Running North America’s largest transportation network is no easy task. Janno Lieber, the CEO and Chair of New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority is in charge of everything from upgrading ancient train infrastructure to advancing long-delayed expansion plans. He’s now also dealing with potential federal funding cuts for two of his agency’s signature projects – expanding the Second Avenue Subway into East Harlem and building a new commuter rail tunnel to connect New York and New Jersey.
Today on the show, Lieber sits down with host Sarah Holder to discuss his approach to running the agency in the face of these threats, his thoughts on NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani’s free bus proposal, and his advice for other cities who want to up their public transit ambitions.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
So I have to ask you before we get started,
how did you get over here today? What was your
transit mode of choice?
Speaker 1 (00:13):
It's always fastest when you're going north south downtown to Midtown.
You got to take the train.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
A few weeks ago, I sat down with Jano Lieber,
the head of New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the NTA.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
I am to blame for the fact that the metro
card is going to transit heaving to spend the rest
of its days with its friend, mister Tokin, because we
are ready to have an all digital system.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
The MTA is North America's largest public transportation network, managing
many of the New York metro areas, bridges, tunnels, buses,
commuter rail lines, and of course subways.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
Stand clear of the closing doors please fun fact.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
The voice of the subway system, Charlie Pellett, also happens
to be a Bloomberg News anchor. But back to liber
He rides the subway a lot, and when I tell
him my subway line of choice, the four, five, six,
which runs up and down Manhattan's East Side, he approves.
It's a numbered line which means it's one of New
(01:16):
York City's oldest, dating all the way back to nineteen
oh four.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
And weirdly, they are better and more reliable than letter lines,
which were built in the twenties and thirties. They are
the oldest, but the bestest.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Liber was officially confirmed as MTA Chair and CEO in
January twenty twenty two, when New York was still emerging
from the COVID pandemic and transit systems across the country
were dealing with historic ridership declines. Today, ridership on New
York City subways is back to around seventy five percent
of pre COVID rates. But even as New Yorkers return
(01:52):
to public transit, the MTA has a long list of
other challenges to address. There are writer concerns about safety, ability,
and affordability, and now liber can add new funding threats
from Washington to that list. On October first, the first
day of the government shutdown, the Trump administration said it
(02:13):
was withholding eighteen billion dollars in funding that would go
towards two of the MTA's long awaited transit projects, extending
the Second Avenue subway into East Harlem and building a
commuter rail tunnel under the Hudson River to connect New
York and New Jersey. In a press conference a few
weeks ago, President Trump called out New York's tunnel project,
(02:35):
and New York Senator Chuck Schumer by name billions and
billions of dollars at Humor has worked twenty years to
get it's terminated. Meanwhile, US Department of Transportation Secretary Sean
Duffy has sparred with the city over its congestion pricing program,
which charges drivers for entering parts of Manhattan in an
(02:55):
effort to reduce traffic. Duffy has threatened to cut off
other transit rotation eight if it's not rolled back. The
Department of Transportation didn't reply to requests for comment on
specific funding threats. New York isn't the only American city
where public transit projects are facing an uncertain future, but
the city, it's leaders, and it's nearly five million weekday
(03:17):
bus and subway riders have found themselves a repeated target
of the administration's transit attacks.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Obviously, there is a pattern of picking on New York.
They've made it pretty clear that it is intended, i
think mistakenly to put pressure on the Democratic leaders in
the Senate and the House who happen to be New Yorkers.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
I'm Sarah Holder, and this is the big take from
Bloomberg News Today. On the show, we're talking about the
future of public transit with MTA CEO and Chairman Jano Lieber.
How the head of the MTA is trying to expand
service and preserve hard won financial stability while the federal
government threatens to derail some of the system's key transit projects.
(04:07):
Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity. The
MTA has big plans for the next few years. It
desperately needs to update its geriatric signal system, upgrade railcars,
and install more elevators at stations. It has new train
(04:29):
lines it wants to build, like the Interborough Express or IBX,
which would use an old freight railway to connect parts
of Brooklyn to areas and queens that are currently underserved
by public transit. MTA's CEO, jan Olieber believes all these
changes will put the MTA on the right track.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
So good stuff is going on. We got the safety
situation in a much better place, and riders are coming
back like crazy.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
But many of the MTA's plans come with big price
tod and the MTA's finances haven't always been pretty. It's
been struggling to bring in enough revenue to cover its
expenses since the seventies, and since the eighties, the agency's
debt has ballooned. COVID brought it to a tipping point,
but a bailout from the state in twenty twenty three
(05:18):
helped put the MTA on more stable ground. This year,
New York State approved an over sixty eight billion dollar
five year capital plan for the MTA, meant to cover
many of the system's needed upgrades.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
We are fortunate in the sense that our capital program
is mostly state and locally funded eighty percent state and
locally funded, so unlike a lot of other cities and
other transit systems, were not as dependent on the federal government.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
But that leaves about twenty percent that does rely on
federal funding. When I sat down with liber in New York,
I wanted to understand how he's adapting to the federal
government's shift in priorities, starting with the threat to withhold
eighteen billion dollars from two of the agency's key transit projects.
The DOT says it's holding onto these funds. Is they
(06:07):
assess whether any quote unconstitutional practices related to DEI we're
used by contractors on those projects.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Listen, I'm hoping and expecting that this is a temporary
and political moment that I believe in the end, we'll
have nothing to do with the progress on these projects.
Number One, we are advancing the projects even as these
somewhat head scratching messages come from Washington. Number Two, what
they're doing is saying that because they've changed the rules
(06:38):
about what is considered a disadvantaged business enterprise, that we
have to recertify all the companies who are in that program,
and that they're going to, you know, not give money
to the project. The answer is, we will comply with
whatever the federal rules are. But there's no reason to
slow the projects now because we have contracts underway. Contractors
are working, they need to get paid.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Could this lead to mordalize.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
I'm hopeful that it won't. Right now, the project, as
I said, is continue to progress, and so far the
litigation is messaging that these may not stand even if
they wanted them to. But I'm very hopeful that this
is just a temporary political thing. These are great projects.
The Second Avenue Subway is going to add one hundred
(07:22):
thousand riders, more than almost every transit system in the
rest of the United States, just that one project. And
it is even though by no means cheap to build.
In New York, we got crazy stuff underground. We have
communities where dense it's hard to build in the middle
of the densely populated city. But it is the cheapest
major rail project per rider in the country.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Per rider is one way to measure the cost, but
on a per mile basis, it looks a little different.
Construction colls for the first phase of the Second Avenue
Subway reached two point five billion dollars per mile, according
to a report by New York University's Marin Institute of
Urban Management, that made it one of the most expensive
subway lines in the world. Its second phase is budgeted
(08:09):
to cost another seven billion dollars.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
We owe East Harlem a subway since the nineteen forties
when they started knocking down the elevated trains. It's a
fairness thing, but it's also an economic development thing. If
you can't get people to jobs, in education and everything
that New York has to offer, you're actually hurting your economy.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Are you playing any role in negotiating with Transportation Secretary
Duffy or what kinds of conversations are you having with
the federal government When they make these kinds of threats, we.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
Tend to learn about them not directly from the federal government,
but from the New York Post who has the letters
or the things that are allegedly being communicated to us
before we do. But the leadership in this administration of
the Federal trans Administration, which is the sub entity within
us DOT that deals with transit funding, is led by
(08:58):
a guy who is from New York's date, who gets
the importance of these investments. And I'm optimistic that over
time we're going to have a great working relationship.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
The us DOOT didn't respond to a request for comment
about their communications with the MTA. I also want to
talk about congestion pricing. You know, the MTA is the
first US transit agency to really roll this out at scale.
Now we're ten months in. Obviously there are local and
national critics of the program, and we'll get into the
question swirling about its future in a moment. But how
(09:29):
are you assessing the impact of congestion pricing so far
almost a year.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
It is the rare initiative of government where a huge
policy initiative is implemented and almost immediately demonstrates unqualified success.
We'll cut the commute times by twenty five percent for
people who are coming into Manhattan from Jersey or from
Long Island or the boroughs. And all of a sudden,
(09:57):
the drivers who people thought going to be the biggest
opponents of congestion pricing are telling pollsters that they actually
like it and they want to keep it because they
value their time. That's saving a lot of time. And
then we have all these other ancillary benefits that people
have recognized. We have less air pollution, we have less
injuries to pedestrians and cyclists from cars, we have a
(10:20):
ton less honking and lo and behold, all the stats
about New York City Central Business District business activity are
headed in a great direction.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Well, there are various lawsuits challenging congestion pricings legality, and
the most significant attack is coming from the Trump administration.
How do you explain the national uproar about this program.
This is not a driver in New York who is
criticizing this program. This is the president of the United
States and the US DOOT secretary.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
I think it's just it's become mixed in with some
of the culture wars that we've seen develop in national politics.
Transit feels like a blue state thing, so people think, well,
I'm against it if they're on the other side of
the political schism. I actually said that, I do think
that Donald Trump secretly gets why transit is important, because
(11:09):
he owns a share in office buildings to this day,
which are filled with people who couldn't get to work
if they all drove at once, and who depend on
a mass transit. So, you know, so far, I think
the rhetoric has diminished somewhat, and I'm hopeful that because
of the success that it's shown that even you know,
the people who came out against it at the outset,
(11:30):
like some in the federal government, will make their peace
with it and we can all move on.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
What are some of the capital improvements that the funding
is supposed to cover over the next few years, and
that has already been covered.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Well, you talked about one of them. The Second Avenue
subway is partially funded by the revenue from congestion pricing, which,
by the way, is exactly at the numbers that we forecast,
we're going to collect about five hundred million a year.
And this is a Bloomberg podcast, so I'll assume that
everybody understands that we can bond that into multiple up
to fifteen billion of actual bond revenue for the five
(12:04):
hundred million roughly a year. So what are we going
to spend it on. We're spending it on new subway cars.
We're spending it on the Second Avenue Subway to some degree.
We're spending it on making all of these almost five
hundred subway stations ADA accessible with elevators so that everybody
can get in and out of the subway system, which
(12:25):
is long overdue. We do have the Second Avenue Subway
and the Inner Borrow Express, but ninety percent of our
capital program is just fixing signals and physical structure, both
the elevated structure and the tunnels, and the power systems,
which are something from the land that time forgot, and
just the basics.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
I was shocked to learn just how old some of
the technology that underpins the New York Subway is. For example,
the signaling system that dates back to the founding of
the subway itself. How did this technology get so outdated.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
Well, I grew up in New York in the seventies
when the subway system was really really falling apart. It's
the era when we you know, everybody remembers when the
cars had recovered in graffiti and they broke down every
five thousand miles. My predecessors made the case for a
capital program, which hadn't existed before, and they bought new
subway cars, which was a huge step, and they kept
(13:20):
them from being covered with graffiti, and they fixed the
track as trains were derailing all the time. But they
were never given enough money to deal with a lot
of the stuff that you know, we you and I
are just talking about the signal system, the basic tunnel structures,
making the system ready for the era of climate change,
moving a lot of equipment out of harm's way because
(13:41):
of rising sea levels and torrential rainfall out of harm
that could be done by water.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
And those were lower level priorities at the time.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
And now, well they just the money didn't exist because
you know, literally when the capital program started in the eighties,
they were just trying to keep the system from literally
falling apart. You know, this is a trillion and a
half dollar valued system according to financial professionals. And what
they're telling us is you ought to be investing like
one hundred and twenty one hundred and thirty billion dollars
(14:10):
over five years if you are following basic kind of
business school principles. We got more than half of that,
and that is a lot more than the subway system
and mass transit ever got before.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Were thrilled coming up, should New York City buses be free?
And why liber doesn't have a corporate iPad anymore. In September,
(14:43):
the MTA announced that subway and bus fares would be
increasing from two ninety a trip to three dollars a trip.
MTA chairman and CEO Janolber has called the increase modest,
but it still drawn groans from some New Yorkers like
this one, who was interviewed by ABC seven today.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
The MTA voted to increase the fares to three dollars
on more more wow not but s service that we get.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
The MTA is also phasing out physical metro cards and
cracking down on toll and fare evasion, which, according to
the Citizens Budget Commission, costs the agency about a billion
dollars last year. About forty percent of the agency's operating
budget comes from fares and tolls. I asked liber how
the agency thinks about balancing the MTA's revenue needs with
(15:33):
keeping public transit affordable.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
Number one, Mass transit is already one of the very
few things that makes New York affordable. We are not
part of the affordability crisis. We're already an affordability solution.
At fifteen percent or less the cost of owning a car.
Transit is really one of the good things from a
cost standpoint about being a New Yorker. But we want
(15:56):
to keep it affordable to everybody, make it sure that
fair invasion is never a crime of poverty. So, together
with the City of New York, we have a so
called Fairfares program that gives people who are a really
low income a half price fair just like seniors get.
And that gradually the eligibility threshold in terms of income
(16:16):
has been increased, so we think it should continue to
be increased so that you have people who are earning
have minimum wage jobs qualify. Right now, if you have
minimum wage shops and you are forty hours a week,
you still wouldn't qualify. That doesn't seem right.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
The front runner to become the next mayor of New
York City. State Assembly members or on Mamdanni has another
proposal for making transit more affordable. He wants to make
bus service free for everyone. The MTA brought in eight
hundred million dollars from bus fares last year. Mamdani has
proposed replacing that lost revenue with new corporate and income taxes,
(16:56):
which would require state approval. The city piloted five fair
free bus routes from twenty twenty three to twenty twenty four.
The MTA found that ridership increased on the free routes,
but the impact on service speeds was mixed. At the time,
Lieber said that the pilot sent quote the wrong message
while the city was pushing back on fair evasion. So
(17:19):
more than a year later, I wanted to know if
his opinion had changed.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
Well, you know, we're still in an election season, so
I'm gonna respectfully decline to comment on the specific proposals
because we are aggressively nonpartisan. But anytime you start throwing
money at universally, the danger is that you're throwing money
at people who don't need the extra subsidy. Our general
(17:45):
approach has been to try to make sure that the
people who need a little help and a little leg
up in paying transit fairs get that.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
So, taking Mom Donnie's name out of it, do you
believe that buses in New York could be free?
Speaker 1 (17:59):
Listen? I again, I'm not going to get into the specifics,
but I think you get a flavor of what I'm
concerned about, which is the MTA's financial situation is stable,
but it was hard one and you can lose ground
very easily if we're going to spend money and it's
going to have to come out of somebody else's coffers,
not out of the MTAs. We generally would like to
(18:21):
make sure that we're studying it in a really thorough way.
It's the only way policies of that scale can be done.
This is not doctor Frankenstein's laboratory. This is the greatest
city in the world. We ought to be very thorough
in how we plan for major initiatives.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
A lot of our conversation Chairman has centered around the
MTA budget, federal funding opportunities, the capital plan, revenue from fares.
I'm wondering what you would say to critics who point
to the MTA's deficit and budgetary problems in the past,
and say, what are you doing to shore up finances
and internally to ensure the financial stylity of the.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
I'm always glad to be asked this question because you know,
the MTA, since I got there, is one of the
very very few agencies of government and maybe in the
private sector as well. As we're actually providing a ton
more service than we did before COVID, but our budget
in real terms is actually lower. We actually, at our initiative,
(19:20):
have cut five hundred million dollars out of our budget,
our operating budget. That's repeating annual savings by initiating kind
of an internal consultant process. We went around and checked
on who wasn't using the phones and the iPads that
they've been issued. Well, they took my iPad away. I
wasn't using it enough. So doing that, renegotiating our deals
(19:43):
with the cell phone companies who we give a lot
of money to simple stuff, as well as more traditional
consulting efficiencies, have yielded five hundred million dollars in annual savings.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
I mean you're talking about the scale of New York exhibitions. Obviously,
the MTA is the largest transits in North America, so
many more people ride public transit here than they do
in other parts of the country. But what advice would
you have for other transit agencies who are trying to
think bigger about where their transit systems can go.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
The success that we've had in large part been based
on the fact that there is a strong political coalition
that favors transit, that people understand the benefits of transit.
They don't regard it as a niche product that's only
used by some people. In a lot of places, it's
considered to be only for poor people, right, So you
need to build I'd say the most important thing is
(20:35):
public understanding and coalition building. Build a political coalition, explain
what you're going to deliver, and then show people's success.
Show people how transit supports enables the economy to prosper
by building coalitions with the business community, those are so
trains on time and you got it. You have to
provide good service and find ways to provide more service
(20:59):
because there's a close relationship between writer's satisfaction and the
predictability and the level of service. And I think we've
crossed into a good place by growing.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
Service This is the Big Take from Bloomberg News. To
get more from The Big Take and unlimited access to
all of bloomberg dot com, subscribe today at bloomberg dot
com slash podcast offer. If you like this episode, make
(21:31):
sure to follow and review The Big Take wherever you
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for listening. We'll be back tomorrow
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
So I have to ask you before we get started,
how did you get over here today? What was your
transit mode of choice?
Speaker 1 (00:13):
It's always fastest when you're going north south downtown to Midtown.
You got to take the train.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
A few weeks ago, I sat down with Jano Lieber,
the head of New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the NTA.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
I am to blame for the fact that the metro
card is going to transit heaving to spend the rest
of its days with its friend, mister Tokin, because we
are ready to have an all digital system.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
The MTA is North America's largest public transportation network, managing
many of the New York metro areas, bridges, tunnels, buses,
commuter rail lines, and of course subways.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
Stand clear of the closing doors please fun fact.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
The voice of the subway system, Charlie Pellett, also happens
to be a Bloomberg News anchor. But back to liber
He rides the subway a lot, and when I tell
him my subway line of choice, the four, five, six,
which runs up and down Manhattan's East Side, he approves.
It's a numbered line which means it's one of New
(01:16):
York City's oldest, dating all the way back to nineteen
oh four.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
And weirdly, they are better and more reliable than letter lines,
which were built in the twenties and thirties. They are
the oldest, but the bestest.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Liber was officially confirmed as MTA Chair and CEO in
January twenty twenty two, when New York was still emerging
from the COVID pandemic and transit systems across the country
were dealing with historic ridership declines. Today, ridership on New
York City subways is back to around seventy five percent
of pre COVID rates. But even as New Yorkers return
(01:52):
to public transit, the MTA has a long list of
other challenges to address. There are writer concerns about safety, ability,
and affordability, and now liber can add new funding threats
from Washington to that list. On October first, the first
day of the government shutdown, the Trump administration said it
(02:13):
was withholding eighteen billion dollars in funding that would go
towards two of the MTA's long awaited transit projects, extending
the Second Avenue subway into East Harlem and building a
commuter rail tunnel under the Hudson River to connect New
York and New Jersey. In a press conference a few
weeks ago, President Trump called out New York's tunnel project,
(02:35):
and New York Senator Chuck Schumer by name billions and
billions of dollars at Humor has worked twenty years to
get it's terminated. Meanwhile, US Department of Transportation Secretary Sean
Duffy has sparred with the city over its congestion pricing program,
which charges drivers for entering parts of Manhattan in an
(02:55):
effort to reduce traffic. Duffy has threatened to cut off
other transit rotation eight if it's not rolled back. The
Department of Transportation didn't reply to requests for comment on
specific funding threats. New York isn't the only American city
where public transit projects are facing an uncertain future, but
the city, it's leaders, and it's nearly five million weekday
(03:17):
bus and subway riders have found themselves a repeated target
of the administration's transit attacks.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Obviously, there is a pattern of picking on New York.
They've made it pretty clear that it is intended, i
think mistakenly to put pressure on the Democratic leaders in
the Senate and the House who happen to be New Yorkers.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
I'm Sarah Holder, and this is the big take from
Bloomberg News Today. On the show, we're talking about the
future of public transit with MTA CEO and Chairman Jano Lieber.
How the head of the MTA is trying to expand
service and preserve hard won financial stability while the federal
government threatens to derail some of the system's key transit projects.
(04:07):
Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity. The
MTA has big plans for the next few years. It
desperately needs to update its geriatric signal system, upgrade railcars,
and install more elevators at stations. It has new train
(04:29):
lines it wants to build, like the Interborough Express or IBX,
which would use an old freight railway to connect parts
of Brooklyn to areas and queens that are currently underserved
by public transit. MTA's CEO, jan Olieber believes all these
changes will put the MTA on the right track.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
So good stuff is going on. We got the safety
situation in a much better place, and riders are coming
back like crazy.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
But many of the MTA's plans come with big price
tod and the MTA's finances haven't always been pretty. It's
been struggling to bring in enough revenue to cover its
expenses since the seventies, and since the eighties, the agency's
debt has ballooned. COVID brought it to a tipping point,
but a bailout from the state in twenty twenty three
(05:18):
helped put the MTA on more stable ground. This year,
New York State approved an over sixty eight billion dollar
five year capital plan for the MTA, meant to cover
many of the system's needed upgrades.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
We are fortunate in the sense that our capital program
is mostly state and locally funded eighty percent state and
locally funded, so unlike a lot of other cities and
other transit systems, were not as dependent on the federal government.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
But that leaves about twenty percent that does rely on
federal funding. When I sat down with liber in New York,
I wanted to understand how he's adapting to the federal
government's shift in priorities, starting with the threat to withhold
eighteen billion dollars from two of the agency's key transit projects.
The DOT says it's holding onto these funds. Is they
(06:07):
assess whether any quote unconstitutional practices related to DEI we're
used by contractors on those projects.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Listen, I'm hoping and expecting that this is a temporary
and political moment that I believe in the end, we'll
have nothing to do with the progress on these projects.
Number One, we are advancing the projects even as these
somewhat head scratching messages come from Washington. Number Two, what
they're doing is saying that because they've changed the rules
(06:38):
about what is considered a disadvantaged business enterprise, that we
have to recertify all the companies who are in that program,
and that they're going to, you know, not give money
to the project. The answer is, we will comply with
whatever the federal rules are. But there's no reason to
slow the projects now because we have contracts underway. Contractors
are working, they need to get paid.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Could this lead to mordalize.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
I'm hopeful that it won't. Right now, the project, as
I said, is continue to progress, and so far the
litigation is messaging that these may not stand even if
they wanted them to. But I'm very hopeful that this
is just a temporary political thing. These are great projects.
The Second Avenue Subway is going to add one hundred
(07:22):
thousand riders, more than almost every transit system in the
rest of the United States, just that one project. And
it is even though by no means cheap to build.
In New York, we got crazy stuff underground. We have
communities where dense it's hard to build in the middle
of the densely populated city. But it is the cheapest
major rail project per rider in the country.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Per rider is one way to measure the cost, but
on a per mile basis, it looks a little different.
Construction colls for the first phase of the Second Avenue
Subway reached two point five billion dollars per mile, according
to a report by New York University's Marin Institute of
Urban Management, that made it one of the most expensive
subway lines in the world. Its second phase is budgeted
(08:09):
to cost another seven billion dollars.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
We owe East Harlem a subway since the nineteen forties
when they started knocking down the elevated trains. It's a
fairness thing, but it's also an economic development thing. If
you can't get people to jobs, in education and everything
that New York has to offer, you're actually hurting your economy.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Are you playing any role in negotiating with Transportation Secretary
Duffy or what kinds of conversations are you having with
the federal government When they make these kinds of threats, we.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
Tend to learn about them not directly from the federal government,
but from the New York Post who has the letters
or the things that are allegedly being communicated to us
before we do. But the leadership in this administration of
the Federal trans Administration, which is the sub entity within
us DOT that deals with transit funding, is led by
(08:58):
a guy who is from New York's date, who gets
the importance of these investments. And I'm optimistic that over
time we're going to have a great working relationship.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
The us DOOT didn't respond to a request for comment
about their communications with the MTA. I also want to
talk about congestion pricing. You know, the MTA is the
first US transit agency to really roll this out at scale.
Now we're ten months in. Obviously there are local and
national critics of the program, and we'll get into the
question swirling about its future in a moment. But how
(09:29):
are you assessing the impact of congestion pricing so far
almost a year.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
It is the rare initiative of government where a huge
policy initiative is implemented and almost immediately demonstrates unqualified success.
We'll cut the commute times by twenty five percent for
people who are coming into Manhattan from Jersey or from
Long Island or the boroughs. And all of a sudden,
(09:57):
the drivers who people thought going to be the biggest
opponents of congestion pricing are telling pollsters that they actually
like it and they want to keep it because they
value their time. That's saving a lot of time. And
then we have all these other ancillary benefits that people
have recognized. We have less air pollution, we have less
injuries to pedestrians and cyclists from cars, we have a
(10:20):
ton less honking and lo and behold, all the stats
about New York City Central Business District business activity are
headed in a great direction.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Well, there are various lawsuits challenging congestion pricings legality, and
the most significant attack is coming from the Trump administration.
How do you explain the national uproar about this program.
This is not a driver in New York who is
criticizing this program. This is the president of the United
States and the US DOOT secretary.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
I think it's just it's become mixed in with some
of the culture wars that we've seen develop in national politics.
Transit feels like a blue state thing, so people think, well,
I'm against it if they're on the other side of
the political schism. I actually said that, I do think
that Donald Trump secretly gets why transit is important, because
(11:09):
he owns a share in office buildings to this day,
which are filled with people who couldn't get to work
if they all drove at once, and who depend on
a mass transit. So, you know, so far, I think
the rhetoric has diminished somewhat, and I'm hopeful that because
of the success that it's shown that even you know,
the people who came out against it at the outset,
(11:30):
like some in the federal government, will make their peace
with it and we can all move on.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
What are some of the capital improvements that the funding
is supposed to cover over the next few years, and
that has already been covered.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Well, you talked about one of them. The Second Avenue
subway is partially funded by the revenue from congestion pricing, which,
by the way, is exactly at the numbers that we forecast,
we're going to collect about five hundred million a year.
And this is a Bloomberg podcast, so I'll assume that
everybody understands that we can bond that into multiple up
to fifteen billion of actual bond revenue for the five
(12:04):
hundred million roughly a year. So what are we going
to spend it on. We're spending it on new subway cars.
We're spending it on the Second Avenue Subway to some degree.
We're spending it on making all of these almost five
hundred subway stations ADA accessible with elevators so that everybody
can get in and out of the subway system, which
(12:25):
is long overdue. We do have the Second Avenue Subway
and the Inner Borrow Express, but ninety percent of our
capital program is just fixing signals and physical structure, both
the elevated structure and the tunnels, and the power systems,
which are something from the land that time forgot, and
just the basics.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
I was shocked to learn just how old some of
the technology that underpins the New York Subway is. For example,
the signaling system that dates back to the founding of
the subway itself. How did this technology get so outdated.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
Well, I grew up in New York in the seventies
when the subway system was really really falling apart. It's
the era when we you know, everybody remembers when the
cars had recovered in graffiti and they broke down every
five thousand miles. My predecessors made the case for a
capital program, which hadn't existed before, and they bought new
subway cars, which was a huge step, and they kept
(13:20):
them from being covered with graffiti, and they fixed the
track as trains were derailing all the time. But they
were never given enough money to deal with a lot
of the stuff that you know, we you and I
are just talking about the signal system, the basic tunnel structures,
making the system ready for the era of climate change,
moving a lot of equipment out of harm's way because
(13:41):
of rising sea levels and torrential rainfall out of harm
that could be done by water.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
And those were lower level priorities at the time.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
And now, well they just the money didn't exist because
you know, literally when the capital program started in the eighties,
they were just trying to keep the system from literally
falling apart. You know, this is a trillion and a
half dollar valued system according to financial professionals. And what
they're telling us is you ought to be investing like
one hundred and twenty one hundred and thirty billion dollars
(14:10):
over five years if you are following basic kind of
business school principles. We got more than half of that,
and that is a lot more than the subway system
and mass transit ever got before.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Were thrilled coming up, should New York City buses be free?
And why liber doesn't have a corporate iPad anymore. In September,
(14:43):
the MTA announced that subway and bus fares would be
increasing from two ninety a trip to three dollars a trip.
MTA chairman and CEO Janolber has called the increase modest,
but it still drawn groans from some New Yorkers like
this one, who was interviewed by ABC seven today.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
The MTA voted to increase the fares to three dollars
on more more wow not but s service that we get.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
The MTA is also phasing out physical metro cards and
cracking down on toll and fare evasion, which, according to
the Citizens Budget Commission, costs the agency about a billion
dollars last year. About forty percent of the agency's operating
budget comes from fares and tolls. I asked liber how
the agency thinks about balancing the MTA's revenue needs with
(15:33):
keeping public transit affordable.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
Number one, Mass transit is already one of the very
few things that makes New York affordable. We are not
part of the affordability crisis. We're already an affordability solution.
At fifteen percent or less the cost of owning a car.
Transit is really one of the good things from a
cost standpoint about being a New Yorker. But we want
(15:56):
to keep it affordable to everybody, make it sure that
fair invasion is never a crime of poverty. So, together
with the City of New York, we have a so
called Fairfares program that gives people who are a really
low income a half price fair just like seniors get.
And that gradually the eligibility threshold in terms of income
(16:16):
has been increased, so we think it should continue to
be increased so that you have people who are earning
have minimum wage jobs qualify. Right now, if you have
minimum wage shops and you are forty hours a week,
you still wouldn't qualify. That doesn't seem right.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
The front runner to become the next mayor of New
York City. State Assembly members or on Mamdanni has another
proposal for making transit more affordable. He wants to make
bus service free for everyone. The MTA brought in eight
hundred million dollars from bus fares last year. Mamdani has
proposed replacing that lost revenue with new corporate and income taxes,
(16:56):
which would require state approval. The city piloted five fair
free bus routes from twenty twenty three to twenty twenty four.
The MTA found that ridership increased on the free routes,
but the impact on service speeds was mixed. At the time,
Lieber said that the pilot sent quote the wrong message
while the city was pushing back on fair evasion. So
(17:19):
more than a year later, I wanted to know if
his opinion had changed.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
Well, you know, we're still in an election season, so
I'm gonna respectfully decline to comment on the specific proposals
because we are aggressively nonpartisan. But anytime you start throwing
money at universally, the danger is that you're throwing money
at people who don't need the extra subsidy. Our general
(17:45):
approach has been to try to make sure that the
people who need a little help and a little leg
up in paying transit fairs get that.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
So, taking Mom Donnie's name out of it, do you
believe that buses in New York could be free?
Speaker 1 (17:59):
Listen? I again, I'm not going to get into the specifics,
but I think you get a flavor of what I'm
concerned about, which is the MTA's financial situation is stable,
but it was hard one and you can lose ground
very easily if we're going to spend money and it's
going to have to come out of somebody else's coffers,
not out of the MTAs. We generally would like to
(18:21):
make sure that we're studying it in a really thorough way.
It's the only way policies of that scale can be done.
This is not doctor Frankenstein's laboratory. This is the greatest
city in the world. We ought to be very thorough
in how we plan for major initiatives.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
A lot of our conversation Chairman has centered around the
MTA budget, federal funding opportunities, the capital plan, revenue from fares.
I'm wondering what you would say to critics who point
to the MTA's deficit and budgetary problems in the past,
and say, what are you doing to shore up finances
and internally to ensure the financial stylity of the.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
I'm always glad to be asked this question because you know,
the MTA, since I got there, is one of the
very very few agencies of government and maybe in the
private sector as well. As we're actually providing a ton
more service than we did before COVID, but our budget
in real terms is actually lower. We actually, at our initiative,
(19:20):
have cut five hundred million dollars out of our budget,
our operating budget. That's repeating annual savings by initiating kind
of an internal consultant process. We went around and checked
on who wasn't using the phones and the iPads that
they've been issued. Well, they took my iPad away. I
wasn't using it enough. So doing that, renegotiating our deals
(19:43):
with the cell phone companies who we give a lot
of money to simple stuff, as well as more traditional
consulting efficiencies, have yielded five hundred million dollars in annual savings.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
I mean you're talking about the scale of New York exhibitions. Obviously,
the MTA is the largest transits in North America, so
many more people ride public transit here than they do
in other parts of the country. But what advice would
you have for other transit agencies who are trying to
think bigger about where their transit systems can go.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
The success that we've had in large part been based
on the fact that there is a strong political coalition
that favors transit, that people understand the benefits of transit.
They don't regard it as a niche product that's only
used by some people. In a lot of places, it's
considered to be only for poor people, right, So you
need to build I'd say the most important thing is
(20:35):
public understanding and coalition building. Build a political coalition, explain
what you're going to deliver, and then show people's success.
Show people how transit supports enables the economy to prosper
by building coalitions with the business community, those are so
trains on time and you got it. You have to
provide good service and find ways to provide more service
(20:59):
because there's a close relationship between writer's satisfaction and the
predictability and the level of service. And I think we've
crossed into a good place by growing.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
Service This is the Big Take from Bloomberg News. To
get more from The Big Take and unlimited access to
all of bloomberg dot com, subscribe today at bloomberg dot
com slash podcast offer. If you like this episode, make
(21:31):
sure to follow and review The Big Take wherever you
listen to podcasts. It helps people find the show. Thanks
for listening. We'll be back tomorrow
Hosts And Creators
Sarah Holder
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