Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) Chair and CEO Janno Lieber appeared live on WNYC's The Brian Lehrer Show to discuss transportation-related topics.
A transcript of the interview appears below.
Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. On today's show, it's call your senator and call your MTA Chairman coming up a little later. It's our monthly call your senator segment, my questions and yours for New Jersey Senator Andy Kim, but first we have the chair and CEO of the MTA, Janno Lieber, who will answer my mass transit questions and yours as the Mamdani era ends and the MetroCard, I mean, the Mamdani era begins, and the MetroCard era ends. 212-433-WNYC call or text for the question for Janno Lieber, 212-433-9692, and Chairman Lieber, we always appreciate that you come on with us. Welcome back to WNYC.
MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber: Good to be with you, Brian.
Lehrer: Want to start with the end of the MetroCard era. What's the exact date again?
Lieber: Well, at the end of this year, we're going to stop selling new MetroCards, but they will be accepted in the system, and most important, people can trade them in for credit on OMNY cards or on an OMNY account, at least through the first half of next year. So, it's going to be a smooth transition. Brian, we're already up to well over 90% of riders using OMNY, and even the reduced fare customers, that’s seniors and disabled people who qualify for reduced fare, our fair fares customers as well have adopted OMNY to 90% level in just a few months. It's really taken hold. We're on the move.
Lehrer: So, I guess there's not that much nostalgia. You know, I remember the dawn of the MetroCard era in the 90s when there were traditionalists out there complaining about the demise of the subway token. And why do we need this new-fangled blah, blah, blah. But it was definitely an improvement by so many measures. Are you getting any of that nostalgia or resistance to change from people just used to swiping MetroCards?
Lieber: Yeah, I mean, listen, New Yorkers are nostalgic, you know, you and I grew up in the token era, and we made the transition, and it enabled us to give people better deals. It enabled people to give us, like weekly and monthly, reduced fares. And we're able to do even more with OMNY now because it's a much more advanced system technologically. So, yeah, there's nostalgia, and we're going to celebrate that nostalgia. We're going to have a lot of MetroCard themed events in the next few months to say goodbye to the MetroCard, but people are taking advantage of tap and ride and getting real benefits. You don't have to walk up to the machine and say how many times am I going to ride next week or next month? And you don't have to have 100 bucks in your pocket to pay for a monthly. It all happens automatically with OMNY, and people are loving those benefits.
Lehrer: I didn't know about this idea for farewell MetroCard events. Are you going to do like Ultimate Frisbee, MetroCard fling? Or what's it going to be?
Lieber: I mean, it's all kinds of stuff. We did MetroCard themed food with like Zabar’s and Carvel, and all these New York food brands are doing MetroCard themed food. There's even a MetroCard, you know, yellow and blue sandwich, which is nostalgic to the back in the day, old blue and yellow MetroCard. Look out for different cards that we're going to be doing that's part of the fun, more to follow on all that.
Lehrer: Oh, that's interesting. My favorite was a Yankees and Mets logo Subway Series MetroCard that I used until it wore out.
Lieber: Yeah. Well, you know, everybody's got their fave. I’ve got a Biggie Smalls MetroCard that I used for a while too. So definitely, there's a lot in the nostalgia category that we are going to keep doing with the MetroCard.
Lehrer: On the Tap and Ride technology, people's credit cards, their payment apps on their phones, or actual OMNY cards, but I've heard complaints about the discounts for many rides not being as clean as they were for weekly or monthly MetroCards. Like you have to pay for those free taps and get reimbursed on your card later. Is that true?
Lieber: No. So, it's automatic. You ride 12 times, starting at the 13th ride. If you ride more than 12 times in a week, you automatically get free rides for the balance of the seven-day period, and it can start on a Monday, on a Tuesday, on a Wednesday. You don't need to decide when your seven-day period starts. The challenges that we've had with the technology is a little bit software capacity on the back of house, and sometimes the charges were delayed, which you know, which definitely got, got us some grousing from the customers, legitimately, but we've now got the contractor to upgrade the technology, so that it can process more quickly, and I think that problem is going to go away. No one was ever overcharged.
Lehrer: You have me?
Lieber: I got you, Brian.
Lehrer: Okay, sorry about that. I don't know we had some kind of glitch there. We do have a text from a listener on the discount system. Listener writes, why aren't there monthly or weekly options? Feels like I get charged way more than I would if I could buy a monthly flat out. So maybe it's worth explaining a little bit why that particular change?
Lieber: Yeah, so you're not prepaying for a monthly unlimited which what you're getting is every time you start using your OMNY card, whether you use Apple Pay or Google Pay or an OMNY card or just a regular credit card, it starts tracking you for the next seven days, and if you hit 12 rides in the seven days, you automatically get free for the balance of the seven days, so you don't have to pre-purchase. It's a much simpler system, and it really takes away the unfairness of unlimited ride options being only available to people who have the money in the pocket to prepay, it's a real equity step forward. Now, understand that people don't see it as much because they're not prepaying, and they don't have that monthly or weekly in their pocket. But it is a fairer system, and it's a more flexible system, because a lot of people were leaving money on the table. Brian, they were buying a weekly or a monthly, and we were making $20 plus million a year on people not using the full benefit of these pre-paid cards. We’re giving that money up so that we can have a fairer system where people don’t have to pre-pay and do all the math about how many times they’re going to ride.
Lehrer: A couple of people have texted versions of this in the last couple of minutes. Is OMNY giving personal tracking information to the NYPD?
Lieber: No.
[Technical issue relating to global internet outage briefly interrupts the show which then resumes]
Lehrer: Isn’t President Trump kind of down on mass transit and that means mass transit funding compared to past presidents?
Lieber: There’s a lot of different rhetoric coming out of Washington. There was rhetoric about Second Avenue Subway around the time of the shutdown which was clearly directed at the Democratic leaders in the House and the Senate who happen to be from New York. We’ll see when the dust settles whether that continues. We’ve been dealing with a Secretary of Transportation who likes to run around telling everybody how dangerous New York’s subway system is even though crime is down double digits from before COVID, down significantly from last year. So, we can deal with whatever’s coming from Washington. You know why though Brian? Because we have a state government led by Kathy Hochul that really supports mass transit. We’ve got the biggest capital program that we’ve ever had. We’ve had our budget problems addressed by Albany, again under Hochul’s leadership. And we ain't in the same boat as Philadelphia, or Chicago, or BART in San Francisco, who are struggling to pay their bills and maintain service. We’re in great shape.
Lehrer: Well, that's good as far as it goes, but more on the federal role. I mean, when Senator Kim is on later this morning, I know we'll talk about the Trump administration's termination of the Gateway Tunnel project between Penn Station and New Jersey. That's not part of the MTA, but it does have ramifications on the New York side, I would guess. I think it at least affects Amtrak, not just NJ Transit. Do you have any comment on that?
Lieber: No, we are not in the middle of the Gateway Project at all, but I know that Governor Hochul and state leadership believe, and Senator Schumer and folks in New York leadership in general, believe that's incredibly important to the region, and we're all hoping that settles down. But we're, we're forging ahead because most of our capital money is coming from, as I said, from the state. Now we're rebuilding all the tunnels that no one's touched in 100 years, the power systems, all the basic unsexy stuff that is going to fall apart if we don't invest in it. It's finally getting investment, and we're putting in ADA elevators at every goddamn station that we can, as fast as we can, because it's time that every New Yorker had access.
Lehrer: I was mentioning during the break that you've been on before during the campaign opposing Mayor Elect Mamdani's free buses proposal. Do you have a fight coming in the legislature next year over that?
Lieber: You know, I got to say, I've said it before, but it doesn't always get picked up. I love that the mayoral campaign focused on mass transit so much. I love that Zohran Mamdani put mass transit in a lot of his commercials, and there's a picture of him on the front of this week's New Yorker on the subway. It's great when mayoral candidates and the mayor-to-be is talking about transit all the time. We're going to we're going to work through the issues of the specifics. But I love talking about more riders and more service and more affordability on mass transit. I think we have a lot in common.
Lehrer: I know it's been just a couple of weeks since Election Day, but have you spoken to the mayor-elect since?
Lieber: I haven't spoken since the election, but I know the guy, he was a very pro-transit Assemblyman, and we spent time with him, as we said, the last couple of years, when we were making sure the MTA had enough money to run more service and keep those fare increases that are in the 20, 30% range in Philadelphia and other places that we're doing, you know, 2% a year. So, I do know the mayor-elect, and I look forward to working with him.
Lehrer: What the mayor-elect says in his slogan, as you know, is not just free buses, it's fast and free buses. Do you have an alternative way to speed up how buses get from point to point. His argument is, if, you know, the driver doesn't have to wait for everybody to use their OMNY card or whatever form of payment, then the buses can just basically keep going and they'll be faster. Do you have alternative ways to speed up how buses move? Because you know, on many lines, as you know, it is really slow.
Lieber: Yeah, I mean, there's basic stuff that, I mean, the Times did a whole detail on this. There are lots of ways to make buses much faster without dealing with the specifics of free. How do we do that? We have the bus lanes that are actually the law the city of New York, we're supposed to be doing bus lanes much faster. We continue to have automatic camera enforcement for people who are blocking the bus lanes and blocking the bus stop, which is making things better. Also, you know, automatic camera enforcement on double parking that that is blocking buses. There are a ton of ways that we can do it. And when we have OMNY, full OMNY, and are no longer messing around with coins on the bus, we can do European style proof of payment, which opens the opportunity to do rear door boarding as well. One of the reasons that we haven't moved as quickly to rear door boarding as we may have wanted to is the fare box is still important, it's where people pay. The other thing that's helped us move buses more quickly, especially in Manhattan, is congestion pricing, which is an unmitigated success. How often do we get policies that government is implementing that automatically show benefit, like congestion pricing, huge success for the city.
Lehrer: By the way, here's an update for you and for our listeners on what be what may be happening with our normal way to connect. And we are going to be able to take phone calls because phone service does seem to be working. That's how we got you back on the line. New York Times just moved a story with the headline. Cloudflare says it has resolved outage that disrupted part of the internet, so hopefully our service will be coming back soon. The subhead says services from Cloudflare, a software company, underpin thousands of websites including X Spotify and Open Ai plus WNYC, I guess, but it says Cloudflare experienced issues with its global network, disrupting service from many websites and apps. The company said it believed the problem had been resolved around 9:40 A.M roughly three hours after we first reported issues, although what, whatever happened to us didn't happen until just a few minutes ago, but I think now it may be resolved for us too. So, I'm just going to try to switch lines here, and let's see if, if this is, yeah, if this is back, then listeners, I'm in better quality now. thank you for sticking with us through that. Those of you who did, chairman of the MTA, Janno Lieber is still with us by phone, because we had to, you know, re-hook him some way, when our digital connection to him went down and Chairman Lieber, you're still there, right?
Lieber: Yes, I'm glad you teenagers everywhere can return to scrolling.
Lehrer: There you go. Okay, let's see. Let's take a call. Here is John in Wantagh, a social worker, wondering how he'll give free MetroCards to people, which they normally do. It works in Brooklyn, I guess, maybe free OMNY cards. Let's see how he puts it, John, you're on WNYC with Chair of the MTA Janno Lieber. Hi.
John from Wantagh, caller: Yes, Brian, thank you. It's just a question, because now the working poor don't qualify for Medicaid trips, so we've been giving single trip MetroCards, and that's going away. One of the projected solutions was to have them wave their discharge papers at the clerk. And that's, you know, a privacy issue, too. So, I just want to know if there was any plan for the single use type card.
Lieber: Honestly, we are determined to make sure that everybody who's sort of in that low- income category has access. So, we've actually been pushing for universal and higher eligibility, income eligibility levels on fair fares, so people with limited means, I think those are the folks you're talking about. So, we want to get to those working poor folks. That is a huge part of what the MTA is pushing on affordability. But we do have those single use OMNY cards available, and I don't know the mechanics, but we can figure it out if you, if you contact the MTA at MTA dot info, send us an email or get on the phone with somebody through one of the mechanisms that we have, social media, otherwise, we can get into the specifics.
Lehrer: John, I hope that's helpful. Let's go next to Eric in Brooklyn, Eric, you're on WNYC. Hello.
Eric in Brooklyn, caller: Thanks for taking my call. I just wanted to know, how do the chairman and MTA justify constant rate hikes, and what I mean by that, since, at least since 2003 there's been more people riding the train than ever, so let's just disregard the pandemic, but every single business in New York City pays a tax to the MTA. Before you even get in the taxi and ride, there's a surcharge that goes to the MTA. They always say that the trains are not fixed. Everything is old. So, where's the money going? Because that's money that you're not spending. There's been layoffs of clerks. So that's salaries, you know, insurance that you don't have to pay. You have enough money to hire security to watch turnstiles, but so I just want to know, how are your books not shown? So, I just want to know where is the money going, and how do you justify the rate hikes?
Lieber: Okay, so everything about the MTA’s budget is available online if you want to get if you want to look at it, we have literally billions and billions of lines of data there, and it's all publicly available through open data. So, in fact, Reinvent Albany, which is, you know, the organization that pushes for transparency in government, has called us a gold standard. So, you want to know anything about the MTA’s budget, by all means, go on the open data of the state of New York, or you can actually go on the MTA website and get into it. The reason that we have our fare hikes, though, just bear in mind, they're like 2% a year over the past 15 plus years, even less, and we have to increase our wages of our workforce, which is about 60 to 70% of our cost structure, just like every place else. So that is the reason that we have incrementally increased. Now, in the old days, what they used to do is they wouldn't increase the fare, and then the MTA budget would blow up, and they'd have a crisis, and it would go up by 10, 20, even more, 10, 20% at a time. Instead, about 15 years ago, there was a recommendation that we do small, incremental increases every couple of years, and those have been at the rate of 2% a year, and that's what we're trying to stick to. Remember, New Jersey Transit across the water went up by 20% last year. SEPTA is going up by over 20% in Philadelphia, we're trying to keep it down to a couple points a year just to cover our wage reality. Okay, and bear in mind, I know the caller is probably skeptical about MTA finances in general, but what I would say is we are actually spending less money in real terms than we were before COVID. Our budget is actually lower in real terms than it was before COVID. Even though we're running a ton more service, we've increased Long Island Rail Road service by 40% we're running a whole new Long Island Rail Road station in the basement of Grand Central we have cut $500 million a year out of our budget. I’m very proud of the fiscal restraint that we have exercised in the time that I've been here.
Lehrer: Eric, I don't know if that fully answers your question, but hopefully it does. Thank you for raising it. You mentioned Chairman Liber in that answer that recovery, or maybe he really brought it up, the recovery of ridership after the pandemic, I know early on, ridership recovered better on the weekends than the weekdays. And the last stats I saw, you're still not at 100% of ridership from before the pandemic. My personal experience just, you know, observation is it does often seem to be more crowded on the weekend than the weekdays, certainly relative to the past. But what are the actual stats?
Lieber: Yeah, we're between 80 and 85% apples to apples of pre-COVID on the subways. You're absolutely right, Brian. We're at 90 plus percent on the weekend, sometimes over 100%. Long Island Railroad is actually at 120% of where it was pre-COVID on the weekend, and like 90% on the week%. But, you know, there's no question that hybrid work is a thing. It's affected our commuter population. But where people have options about how to go where they're going, where they want to go out at night or go see family members or do shopping. They're choosing transit at much higher rates, much closer to pre-COVID levels. You're right about that.
Lehrer: Joy in Manhattan, here on WNYC with Janno Lieber, CEO and Chair of the MTA.
Joy in Manhattan, caller: Hi. So, I have two related questions. I, until about a week ago, was still using my MetroCard, and the reason why I didn't want to switch was because I sometimes transfer from the subway to a bus in Yonkers, and with the MetroCard, you can transfer. With OMNY, you cannot transfer. So, if I didn't have a regular MetroCard, I would have to pay twice. So, part of my questions, are you going to fix that? But the second part is, you keep saying we can use MetroCards at least until January. I had to call 511, to find out where there was a station that would actually let me add money to my MetroCard. Unfortunately, there's one only a mile from where I live, so I can walk up there and put money on my card. But most stations do not let you add money to your MetroCard anymore. So, the notion that we can still use them really…(garbled)
Lieber: Yeah, I mean, we still have MetroCard machines out there at most stations, but you're not wrong…
Joy in Manhattan, caller: No, you don’t. You have them at very few stations, very few.
Lieber: So, your situation is unique. We're trying to get all the Westchester bus lines on OMNY as well. They're actually acquiring the technology. That is underway. And you know it's coming. It's Westchester Beeline. It's run by the County of Westchester. But the time is coming when your particular problem is going to go away, when Westchester Beeline has full OMNY adaptation. So, you know, I'm sorry for the headache in the meantime, but that is that is coming, and we have been working with them very closely to make sure they get the same technology in place.
Lehrer: And another listener asks in a text, why doesn't the OMNY system tell you if you're getting a free transfer like the MetroCard would, and will we ever get to see our balance on an OMNY card when we tap like on a MetroCard. Listener writes, I love my plastic OMNY card, but these seem like steps backward.
Lieber: Yeah. So, you can go online and look at your account and set up your online account so you can review all your transfers and the progress that you're making towards getting your free, your free rides and all the benefits of OMNY, and we're going to continue to increase the transparency of that to the customer in the station as well over time.
Lehrer: Lawrence in Manhattan, you're at WNYC with Janno Lieber. Hi, Lawrence.
Lawrence in Manhattan, caller: How you doing? I just have two questions. One is do you have any data on cross streets like West 14th Street and East 14th Street, where the buses people aren't paying. They have free buses already there. What are you doing to monitor that? And secondly, is it speeding up the service because no one's paying? Because that would be like a good pilot study.
Lieber: You know, first of all, 14th Street is a great example of faster. People talk about fast, and the mayor-elect also talked about free. But for fast, 14th Street is a success story, because when they limited car travel on 14th Street, all of a sudden, the speed of the 14th Street Crosstown went up dramatically. I don't think it's because people aren't paying. But you're right about something, which is, while we have reduced fare evasion on the subway by over 30% in the last year, the buses continue to have a fare evasion problem. People got out of the habit of paying during COVID, when they were getting on the back of the bus and being told not to pay because we were protecting drivers, and we have had trouble reestablishing the pattern of fare payment. Once we get into the OMNY world, we're going to have what I call European-style payment validation, where fare agents can get on a bus and ask anybody, show me your OMNY card, show me your phone, how you paid, and validate that. In the meantime, we are doing much more enforcement on the buses and giving out tickets for people who don't pay. But you can't have a cop or a fare agent on every bus because there's so many more than that in the subways. And nonpayment is definitely an issue. When people don't pay, what they're doing is, they're kind of breaking the rules of New York. What it's, what I think is harmful is saying that you're going to make the other guy pay for your fare, in effect, and we don't think that's fair. It's not the way New York works. We're all kind of responsible for the system, but we do want to make it easier for people who have really low income to get free fares, and that's why we have pushed increased so-called fair fares program, to raise the eligibility threshold for income level so that more people get that benefit as well if they're really poor.
Lehrer: Is it a point of dispute between you and Mayor-Elect Mamdani or D.A. Bragg in Manhattan, for that matter, what kind of penalties, if any, should be imposed on people who get caught for fare evasion?
Lieber: I'm not into enforcement for its own sake. In the subway, fare evasion enforcement frequently yields people who have warrants, and people who are carrying weapons. We pick up, you know, 100 plus guns a year, from fare evasion enforcement. So, I'm not into enforcement for its own sake. I just want to sort of maintain this culture of we're all in this together and not make people who pay their fare feel like suckers. Because if we have a massive fare evasion problem, the subway system and the bus system is going to have a financial problem. That's bad for everybody, and we don't want to cut service or have to fire people because fare evasion is broken and become random. But let me tell you, Brian, we've made a lot of progress in the last year. I don't want that to be underestimated, that, you know, that progress on the subway, to take it down 30% was a big push that I undertook with Demetrius Crichlow, the new head of New York City Transit, and it has been successful. We're going to bring the same focus to the buses once we have a little more technology available.
Lehrer: Have those new flaps that I've been seeing on the top of the turnstiles, you know, they look like little wings or flaps. People who ride the subways have seen them a few inches, starting at the turnstile bar and going up. I guess you have to be a little bit more of a vaulter to get over that than just the turnstile. Plus, it's got kind of this flat edge that wouldn't be fun if you landed on it. Are they making a measurable difference?
Lieber: Yeah. I mean, we've done a range of different things where we fix the physical turnstile so you can't backcock. We've had what we call fins and sleeves that make it harder to vault over the turnstile. We've had gate guards, those people who make sure that the exit gate doesn't get pushed open and 10 people walk in. And we've also put a delay on some of the egress gates as well. Altogether, that's what’s yielded the 30 plus percent. And there's no one thing that has created the reduction by itself. It's been this, this variegated effort, but it's been very successful, and we're going to keep pushing.
Lehrer: Let me ask you about a bill on Governor Hochul’s desk that I gather she is deciding whether to sign or veto, for listeners who don't know it would require the MTA to have two crew members on trains, as the New York Times describes it, we now see an operator who drives the train and a conductor who controls the doors and makes announcements. Supporters of the practice say that a second pair of eyes on the train helps keep passengers safe, but many transit advocates argue that the custom is unnecessary, costly, and impedes faster service, so that from the Times. They also point out that the union supports the bill, and I guess that makes sense, because it's that many employees, more and members, where do you stand on that?
Lieber: So, listen, this bill has been bouncing around the legislature for literally 30 years and was never enacted. I don't know why the legislature voted it this year. It's actually asking us to change things. So that, you know, on the Times Square to Grand Central shuttle, we would have to have two people, even though it's a short train, it would force us to add people to even the shorter trains that were running. So, it would be both inefficient and, frankly, it makes New York really weird by national and international standards. NYU did a study and found that less than 6% of transit systems actually use two operators. So, we're looking for flexibility. We're looking to be able to provide maximum amounts of service, and this would not be helpful in that connection, so we'll see what happens. But this is sort of an oddball, you know, move by the legislature, frankly, on a very, very outdated concept.
Lehrer: I see what you’re saying about really short lines like the Grand Central-Time Square shuttle. But what about safety issues? If we don't want the over policing risks to people of more cops, or Governor Hochul’s National Guard troops on the trains, which some people perceive as a threat to them, not just safety. You know that people with safety concerns often gravitate to the car with a conductor, because even though they're not cops, their presence is considered likely to deter crime in that car. Do you agree?
Lieber: Listen, the conductors are not policemen, let's just be clear. We've had a reduction, a significant reduction in crime in the last couple of years. We're down, I think, 13% since before COVID. We’re significantly down in felony crime versus last year. And that's because of the NYPD, and it's because Governor Hochul invested, helped us to invest in cameras so that there's literally a camera in every subway car, which was not the case a couple years ago, there's a camera all over the station. Those are the things that have made a difference in the reduction in crime. What would also make a difference in further reducing crime is if the criminal justice system was able to deal with a very small number of people who are really chronic recidivists. I keep seeing people who do bad stuff in our system who have 20, 30,40, arrests beforehand, including for violent attacks. I'm really counting on the criminal justice system to make sure those people are kept out of the system. If we got rid of those folks, crime will continue to go down, and we're really proud of the progress that has been made already.
Lehrer: A Metro-North question from Patrick in Croton-on-Hudson, Patrick you’re on WNYC. Hello.
Patrick in Croton-on-Hudson, caller: Hi. Good morning. Big picture question based off a small picture experience. New York City Marathon was coinciding with daylight saving time. So living in Croton, I know a lot of people used to take the train in the morning to get to Staten Island, but the conductors said earlier in the week on Friday that due to daylight saving time, the earlier trains were not going to run because they didn't think as many people, and then jumping on the subways, you know, following my daughter all around, the trains are overcrowded, and we got kicked off a bunch of trains or couldn't get on. So, just wondering how you guys handle events in the city that coincide with a situation like daylight saving, if you consider how the impact would be, as opposed to the cost savings.
Lieber: So, I’m a tiny bit confused. Number one, love that you’re a Metro-North rider. We’re at 98% on time performance on Metro-North, the best ever. People are lovin’ it. The daylight- saving time issue confuses me because that is always the case the night before the marathon. I know it because I ran the marathon, never fast, I ran it for many years and it’s always daylight-saving time, which is great because an extra hour of sleep before the marathon everybody can use. I don't know the specifics of how that may have affected the Metro-North schedule, what those conductors told you. I'll take a look at it. I do know this, which is that you're absolutely right. Subways are crowded during the marathon, when you're chasing around your family members or others you're watching. They are crowded. It is a challenge. We love the fact that the best way to get around on marathon day is New York City Subway, and because traffic is obviously, you know, not an option, we do add a lot of service and make provisions for all that extra marathon activity. So, thanks for being a rider, and I'll look at the daylight-saving time issue that I was unaware of.
Lehrer: Another Metro-North question, what's going on with Penn Station Access for Metro- North and the new Bronx stations along that route? I think you once said on the show that that was going to be done this year. Now I see it's being delayed until at least 2027. What's up with that?
Lieber: That was always scheduled, Brian, to be done in 2027. Here's the problem. The MTA before my era, had a reputation for projects that went over budget, went very long. We said we're not doing that anymore. We then changed the way that big projects are done, and we started getting projects done on time. The 10-mile long Long Island Rail Road Third Track Project done $100 million under budget and on time. The same contractor is working on the Penn Access Project. The same team from the MTA is working on the Penn Access Project. And you know what? They can't get any work done because Amtrak owns the railroad and promised outages, they promised personnel so work can get done. Amtrak has not made good on those promises. Bronx elected officials are enraged because we have this project designed to make sure that folks in Co-Op City and Parkchester and Morris Park get fast rail service. These are places where people can take an hour and a half to get to a job, and they can't get to the nearby jobs in Westchester and Connecticut on mass transit. And we were going to give them that mass transit, and Amtrak has stopped us cold because they own the railroad, and they are not making good on their promises. That is a huge conflict, and I'm not going to back off on this because we insist on accountability at the MTA for our projects, so there's never another East Side Access project that runs years late, billions over budget, and we want Amtrak to be accountable in the same way when they own the railroad and we're trying to get work done. By the way, 60% of the work on that Penn Access project that is designed to give people in the Bronx railroad service, for the first time. 60% of the work is actually fixing Amtrak’s own damaged infrastructure, and they won't even let us get the work done. So, Amtrak can actually allow us to get the service started for those people in Co-Op City and Parkchester and Morris Park in 2027 if they let us on the railroad now, before the project begins, that's what we're insisting on. Let us on the railroad, people in the Bronx get service, even though Amtrak has screwed the project over six ways to Sunday.
Lehrer: Putting it on Amtrak. I hear you. Last thing. Just after New Year's, we will complete the first year of congestion pricing to drive into Manhattan, below 60th Street. As you know, it has had its supporters and detractors. Obviously, you were for it. How's it doing from the revenue standpoint for funding MTA projects, one of the main goals of the fee?
Lieber: The main thing about congestion pricing is that it actually delivered exactly what was promised. There's a ton less traffic. There are less pedestrians and cyclists being hit by enraged road rage drivers. There's more people actually in the central business district than there were before congestion pricing, air quality is better. Among the things that is a right on the money is that we have actually, exactly the revenue that we projected, which is going to be enough for us to bond out $15 billion in bonds that will support investment in the subway system and the mass transit system. We've actually ordered new subway cars with the money from congestion pricing. And we're getting new buses this week, and we're putting in new signals on the A train and other lines with the benefits of congestion pricing, so that New Yorkers see that congestion pricing is going to work to fix the mass transit system.
Lehrer: Is it a catch-22 long term? Like if one goal is to reduce driving into the business district for congestion and environmental and other reasons, but the other point is to raise revenue for the MTA from drivers who do come in. Aren't those opposing goals?
Lieber: Listen, there are a certain number of people who are going to drive. You know who they are? They're the people who can afford to park in Midtown. And we're not worried. We studied this for five years, and we're pretty confident that there are going to be a certain number of people who are going to drive no matter what, and it's going to support the revenue projection, but we're happy that we've also achieved the reduction of congestion and the improvements to the air quality and the other benefits. How often does a government initiative of this scale get executed and immediately deliver the promised benefit? We're very proud of the way the congestion pricing has played out.
Lehrer: I guess those parking garages and the businesses always have congestion pricing or surge pricing. Chairman and CEO of the MTA Janno Lieber, we always appreciate that you come on and answer my questions and so many listener questions. Keep doing it. And thank you for today.
Lieber: You bet.