Soon more and more rare subways and buses and thousands of job cuts? The New York transport authority threatened Wednesday to drastically cut its services if it did not get $ 12 billion in aid to offset the drop in the number of its users.
Despite a pandemic under control for several weeks in the American economic capital, many New Yorkers continue to work from home, sulking subway and commuter trains, pushing the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) to consider a 40% reduction in services .
“Even during the great crisis of the 1930s, the MTA had never suffered such a strong and lasting drop in attendance,” underlined its president Patrick Foye, during a meeting of the directors of the control room broadcast by video.
The figures are striking: despite major efforts to clean the network on a daily basis, the wearing of a mandatory mask and the closure since May of some 420 stations from 1 to 5 a.m. – a first since 1904 – metro use is still down by 75% from its pre-pandemic levels.
The two major train lines run by the MTA, which serve the suburbs of Long Island and northern New York, are experiencing a similar disaffection.
The buses, which many consider safer in the face of the pandemic, are doing better, with a 35% drop in ridership.
In total, the MTA, legally forced to balance its budgets, has a shortfall of some 200 million dollars per week, or some 40% of its income, according to Robert Foran, its financial director.
No measures to cut services have yet been taken, Foyle said.
The idea is to sound the alarm and convince the federal government to inject some $ 12 billion to bail out a network “vital” for the economy of New York and the United States in general, he said. -he explains.
This call for help is part of the efforts of the New York Democratic authorities to obtain help from the federal government, in the face of the expenses and the fiscal shortfall generated by the pandemic.
The House of Representatives, with a Democratic majority, voted in May a support plan intended in particular for states and local communities of some 3 trillion dollars, which the Senate with a Republican majority did not put to a vote.
Recent negotiations between the two parties to reach a compromise have also failed.
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