The mass transit services the MTA oversees are declining. Subway stations are dirty and smelly, homeless folks have made many subway cars their home, farebeating is at an all-time high, and crime is reaching levels not seen since the early 1990s.

Then there is the issue of ridership. Mass transit took a major hit during the COVID lockdown ordered by the Cuomo-Hochul administration.

But two years after the lockdown was lifted, ridership is still significantly below the 2019 levels.

As of Aug. 3, 2022, Long Island Rail Road ridership as a percent of the 2019 monthly average is 61%; Metro-North is 61%; the subway 59.5%; and bus services are at 60.6%.

Then there are infrastructure improvements that have been plagued by cost overruns.

Take the case of the Second Ave. subway extension that the Cuomo- Hochul administration promoted as a major achievement. As the historian, Phillip Mark Plotch pointed out in his fine work “Last Subway,” “Spending $4.6 billion to build a 1.5-mile subway was not necessarily a cause for celebration.… Per mile, the subway cost more than four times as much as new subway lines in Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, Copenhagen, Paris and Tokyo.”

As for the LIRR’s East Side Access project, which commenced in 2001  and was to cost $3.5 billion, well, 21 years later it is still under construction and will cost at least $12 billion—seven times more expensive than similar tunnel work in other nations.

Also, when the East Side Access finally opens, it appears that commuters on the Port Washington branch will have to endure fewer peak hour trains to take them home.

To get a handle on the extent of the fiscal and commuter crisis the MTA is facing, I recommend reading two reports released in July by New York State Comptroller, Tom DiNapoli.

The first is titled “Existential Questions Facing National Public Transit Systems Create New Fiscal Pressures For MTA.”

The report paints a gloomy picture. It points out that farebox revenue from riders is at an all-time low. Fares covered 51% of the MTA’s operating costs in 2019. As of May 2022, fares covered just 31.9% of those costs—which is well below the 40% that the MTA projected in its budget.

Once the Federal COVID relief money is exhausted, the MTA faces growing budget gaps starting in 2025. Structural deficits could exceed $2 billion.

DiNapoli is critical of the MTA’s suggestion that in 2025 it may borrow $500 million, not to finance long-term infrastructure projects but to balance its operating budget. That’s like using your credit card to meet your mortgage payment. Not a sound fiscal policy.

In addition, if ridership does not increase dramatically in the next few years, DiNapoli predicts the “$500 million gap could grow and even double.”

Depending on how the MTA chooses to close the fiscal gaps, the comptroller notes, “the possibility of service cuts, higher than planned fare hikes, reductions in staffing and maintenance, and reduced capital spending, are all on the horizon without additional contributions from the MTA funding partners….”

However, the odds of the state and New York City increasing contributions to the MTA are slim—particularly in a recessionary period.

On July 27, Comptroller DiNapoli issued another statement, this one on the MTA’s July financial plan.

DiNapoli emphasized, “The MTA’s revised ridership projections underscore that it must somehow bridge a looming fiscal canyon of more than $2 billion annually and plan for long-term service challenges.”

The MTA’s latest plan confirms what the comptroller’s office has been saying since September 2021: “The MTA is facing major risks to its operating revenue streams as costs continue to rise, worsening a long-term budgetary imbalance.”

While the comptroller praises the MTA for turning aside “from its ill-advised plan to plug operating gaps through borrowing,” I remain skeptical.

In the unlikely event congestion pricing in Manhattan is finally approved, it may not raise enough money to bail out the agency.

As a result, I have no doubt the MTA will resort to using most any fiscal sleight-of-hand financing, including borrowing long-term, to pay today’s bills.

The MTA is facing problems, mostly of its own making, for as far as the eye can see. Rest assured, however. Commuters will be the ones who suffer the most from higher fares and fewer services.