New York State Republicans are demanding the ouster of the city’s transit chief, citing poor subway service despite an infusion of cash from Gov. Kathy Hochul’s “congestion pricing” Manhattan toll zone.
A press conference came on Wednesday, days after Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy visited Dover, N.J., to assess a massive sinkhole that had closed down I-80. Republicans are also calling for an audit of the entire transit agency.
There, Duffy criticized Hochul for failing to rescind congestion pricing and said New York officials need to get a better handle on subway crime.
“If you want people to take the train, to take transit, then make it safe, make it clean, make it beautiful, make it wonderful, don’t make it a s—hole, which is what she’s done,” he said.
“We don’t have to be at war over this,” Hochul reportedly said in that regard.
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State Sen. Steve Chan, R-Bath Beach, announced a bill at the Albany conference that would add two more members to the state-owned MTA’s board: one representing NYPD transit police and another representing the transit police union.
Chan, a retired NYPD sergeant and immigrant from Hong Kong, condemned a string of dangerous incidents on the rails in and around his Brooklyn district, including the nationally reported case of a passenger set on fire in nearby Coney Island.
“If it takes two men two days to dig a half a hole, then how long would it take one guy to dig a hole?” Chan asked at the presser.
“The question can be answered by [MTA Chair] Janno Lieber, because that’s what he does every year: dig himself a hole,” he said.
“The motto of the MTA seems to be, ‘the higher the cost, the less we have to offer you.’ So every year around this time, the MTA comes with their hand with a tin cup, ‘We need more money,’ and year after year, the Democrats in Albany bend the knee to a mismanaged, misguided and bloated, lackluster transit system.”
Chan said that during his decades as a cop, he saw the best and worst of the subways, but today they’re leaning toward the worst.
He said there was once a time only a few years ago when solo passengers could feel safe underground at 3 a.m., but not today.
“I know private companies that could run the MTA better. I bet I can take a company and give them one single bus line. They’ll turn a profit right away.”
Chan lamented what he called a criminal “free-for-all” in the subway system, arguing that claims of reduced crime are the result of lax enforcement and downgraded charges.
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Sen. Bill Weber, R-Clarkstown, said his constituents north of the city have had to pay a surtax to the MTA for what he called inefficient service and have to choose whether to brave the indirect transit options or the congestion pricing tolls.
He suggested the MTA is blaming NJTransit, which operates MTA trains that pass through the Garden State on their way to either Spring Valley or Port Jervis, and he also called for Lieber’s ouster.
“Two bills that I’m proposing today … will bring more money back into the pockets of Rockland [County] taxpayers and hopefully will get the MTA moving in the right direction,” he said.
Sen. Jack Martins, R-Mineola, added that he hopes the MTA succeeds but has long doubted it.
“Their success is our success. Their success is New York State’s success,” he said, calling the agency’s $19.9 billion budget an appropriation without results.
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“[For] every dollar that comes out [of a New Yorker’s] pocket that goes to fund the MTA, and frankly, we get nothing for it. It’s time for congestion pricing to be repealed. It’s time for an audit and a real audit that goes into the waste, fraud and abuse that exists at the MTA.”
Senate Minority Leader Rob Ortt, R-Niagara Falls, closed the conference by saying the GOP caucus wants the MTA to succeed, and that harsh criticism should not be misconstrued as wishing for failure.
“[But] every time we throw them more money, we’re part of the problem. If we want accountability, the easiest way is to say, ‘The spigot’s turned off until you show us that you’re willing to make changes with the billions of dollars that you get, then we can have a conversation about other things we can do financially.’”
In a statement to Fox News Digital, a top MTA official rejected the collective claims and criticized Martins in particular.
“The LIRR is operating with record on-time performance and crime on the subway is down 24% since last year. And the MTA has a balanced operating budget, so it’s mind-boggling how some politicians are apparently not capable of reading a budget,” MTA chief of policy John J. McCarthy said.
“Mr. Martins has a track record of being wrong. He fought improvements on the LIRR, opposing the Third Track Expansion Project [in Nassau County] – a project that only moved forward when Martins left office.”
“Now Mr. Martins is back in office, the project is done, and he is trying to make believe there is no improvement – meanwhile it only happened because he was out of the picture.”
An MTA official acknowledged that NJ Transit does run service to Rockland and Orange counties and that it could be better, in regard to Weber’s critique.
