Congestion pricing won’t help here: Funds generated from Manhattan tolls are supposed to be used for much-needed infrastructure upgrades, not operating expenses.

They are hoping, rather, that the state delivers more funding and creates a new revenue stream for the authority. MTA officials have resisted following the post-2008 playbook. Happily, the MTA is not yet traveling down that road. The working class and the poor would be left to a diminished transit system, suffering through cuts that make their commutes all but unbearable. But any cuts now would trigger a transit death spiral, with even more riders abandoning public transportation because of slow, unreliable train service. The gut reaction to a ridership decline is to make service cuts, which is what the MTA did in the wake of the 2008 economic crash. With reduced subway and rail ridership in the 2020s, the reliance on farebox revenue might prove disastrous.

The MTA has always been overwhelmingly reliant on revenue from subway, bus and commuter rail fares-which leaves the authority vulnerable to economic downturns.

Andrew Cuomo never did: overhaul both how the transportation authority is funded and how it spends money. To truly fix the MTA, Hochul-assuming she wins in November, as is forecast-must do what Gov. That is the future the MTA must gird for.

Private-sector employers are accommodating them. More suburban and outer-borough workers are choosing to perform their job fully remotely or on a hybrid schedule. Commuting patterns might have permanently changed.

Mta new york city transit