MHV9218

7 minutes ago, JAzumah said:

MCTA = MTA

This is why the taxing area is called the MCTD (Metropolitan Commuter Transit District).

Not sure, I think everybody thinks of the MTA as seriously coming into formation after

1) 1965 - the MCTA taking over the LIRR

2) 1967 - the MCTA acquiring the TBTA, allowing the revenue source to take over the NYCTA (Lindsay's plan)

3) 1968 - the MCTA becomes the MTA, takes over control of everything together, and Robert Moses is finally pushed out

To say that it's only part 1 is, to me, not really the whole picture. Step 1 comprises less than 1/5th of the MTA's budget. 52% goes to the NYCT network, which only came into play in 1967 with steps 2 and 3. The whole point, I think, is that it was this great unholy marriage of all these separate interests, made possible by the relative surplus of tolling against the relative deficit of railroads and transit. 

Today's NYT piece has a pretty useful run-through of what we're looking at. Here are some bullets, with the whole article below:

- the deficit is $15.9 bil through 2024 (or $4bil/yr; for comparison, 2008 and Doomsday were in response to a $0.4bil deficit; i.e., there is no comparison)

- MTA has identified $1bil in savings at the administrative level, mainly through overtime cuts and getting rid of consultants (@bobtehpanda, good news)

- proposed solutions for serious cuts will not be popular with the union: OPTO, firing commuter rail conductors

- buses will probably experience the most cuts

- cuts will reflect the covid drop in ridership first, so I would get used to the overnight bus network 

What the MTA's 'Doomsday' Cuts Would Actually Look Like

Quote

Since the pandemic plunged New York’s public transit system into its worst financial crisis, the transit agency has warned of devastating cuts, including slashing subway and bus service by 40 percent and cutting commuter rail service in half.

For months, transit officials have framed it as an all-or-nothing narrative — either the agency receives a $12 billion federal bailout or moves forward with its doomsday plan — as a way to place pressure on Congress, which remains deadlocked over another major stimulus bill.

But in practical terms the situation is not so black and white. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which oversees the subway, buses and two commuter rails, is likely to get at least some federal aid, which would avert the most severe cuts.

Still, anything less than $12 billion would force the agency to “look at everything on the table and make a decision as to whether service reductions at that level were still required,” Patrick J. Foye, the M.T.A. chairman, has said.

Transit officials are expected to offer more details about their plans next month when they are obligated to approve next year’s budget.

Here’s what we know so far:

Bus routes and subway lines could disappear

While transit officials have not provided specifics, a look at past financial crises offers some clues about what could happen.

After the financial crisis in 2008, when the M.T.A. faced a much smaller $400 million deficit, transit officials eliminated two subway lines and 34 bus routes. Metro-North Railroad eliminated a handful of trains and the Long Island Rail Road reduced service on several lines, doubling wait times outside rush hour to 60 minutes.

To decide how to reduce service, former transit officials say they looked at bus routes and subway lines that overlapped to ensure that riders were left with some public transit option near their home — an approach transit leaders have said they would again pursue.

As in 2010, the agency has hinted that bus routes could feel the brunt of the cuts: Half of the more than 9,000 transit jobs that the M.T.A. has proposed eliminating would come from the division that runs buses.

This time, however, ridership will play a key role. With ridership at 30 percent of its normal levels, transit officials will seek to save money and adjust service to match current commuting trends and then gradually ramp up service on buses and subway lines as riders return.

The agency will likely make cuts based on current ridership on the system, which remains at about 30 percent of pre-pandemic levels.

Service cuts are not the only way to save money

The transit agency faces a $15.9 billion deficit through 2024, after revenues from fares, tolls, dedicated taxes and state and local subsidies practically vanished overnight when the pandemic hit.

The budget hole is the largest in the agency’s history, but some transit experts suggest that the M.T.A. — which has a reputation for massive overspending and labor redundancies — could address part of its deficit and stave off draconian cuts by operating more efficiently.

For example, the M.T.A. could run subway trains with one worker instead of both a conductor and an operator, as most train systems around the world do, or switch to a proof-of-payment model on commuter rails to do away with conductors who collect tickets. It could also reassess the system’s high cost for maintaining subway tracks and train fleets.

The agency has already found $1 billion in savings for next year by trimming nonessential services on the management side, like reducing overtime and eliminating consulting contracts, but it has not taken the same scalpel to the agency’s sprawling operations system.

“They’ve been going hard after administration, which they should — but operations are where the bulk of the money is,” said Andrew Rein, the president of the Citizens Budget Commission, a financial watchdog. The M.T.A. should think about cuts in terms of “efficiencies first and service level second,” he added.

But paring operations would require negotiating with transit labor unions that have fiercely opposed similar efforts in the past. Even if the unions agreed to concessions, any savings would not approach the billions in losses the agency is facing.

The treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, has suggested that the M.T.A. could borrow its way out of its financial crisis in the commercial banking market — a notion that many financial experts dispute.

Debt service already consumes about 16 percent of the agency’s operating dollars and more borrowing could eat further into the agency’s ability to spend money on running trains and buses, the experts say.

“If you rack up too much debt you don’t have enough money for your other operations,” Mr. Rein said.

Fares could rise by four percent next year

A four percent fare increase planned before the pandemic is scheduled to go into effect in the spring.

Transit officials are now laying out options for how the hike would be applied, including raising the base fare to $2.85 and increasing the surcharge for buying a new MetroCard from $1 to $3. The agency is also considering keeping subway and bus fare at $2.75, but either eliminating or increasing the price of seven and 30-day unlimited passes.

On commuter rails, options include keeping the price of monthly and weekly passes the same, but raising the price for single-ride and 10-trip tickets by more than 4 percent. Another possibility is overhauling the fare structure to create three new classes of tickets: Rides that begin and end in the city, rides between the city and the suburbs and rides that are within the suburbs.

The authority plans to hold virtual public hearings on the fare hike, which must be formally approved by the M.T.A. board, between Dec. 1 and Dec 21.

Officials have threatened that without federal aid fares may have to be raised even higher. But transit advocates have argued that doing so would raise little revenue if ridership remains low and would strain many of the city’s essential workers who are still riding public transit.

Major fare hikes could also discourage more riders from returning to the system, starving the agency of fare revenue.

Service will likely suffer for years or longer

Before the pandemic, the agency was pursuing an enormous $54 billion plan to bring the antiquated subway system into the 21st century, which included upgrades to train signals installed before World War II that are the source of constant problems.

That plan is now suspended.

Delaying improvements risks plunging public transit back into the state of disrepair that led Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo to declare a state of emergency.

Some upgrades will also become more expensive the longer the agency waits, which could affect how much the system can be modernized once it has escaped the throes of the financial crisis.

And because transit officials say they want to adjust service to match ridership, when and in what numbers commuters ultimately return to the system will help determine the level of service in the coming years. Ridership is not expected to reach 90 percent of pre-pandemic rates until at least 2024.

“We have the immediate crisis of Covid but then we have the longer term crisis of how the M.T.A. will adapt and change over the next several decades,” said Nick Sifuentes, executive director of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, an advocacy group. “A lot of the plans the M.T.A. had been laying to prepare them for the next generation of services are really at risk here.”

28 minutes ago, Trainmaster5 said:

Are they connected by coupler or link bar ?  Unless the shuttle project is near completion the use of link bar doesn't make sense to me. Why take 6 cars away from the available fleet?  Carry on. 

It's a good question. Perhaps now that they've removed some 62As from the refuse pool they feel they have the capacity? I wouldn't be surprised if they were just coupled. At least until their SMS, a few Westchester 62A five-car sets made of formerly-Flushing singles were coupled in sequential order (1916-1920 come to mind).

9 hours ago, Deucey said:

Except when MCTA was created in '64, it was to buy the LIRR from bankrupt Penn Central. Metropolitan Commuter Transportation Authority

Only in 1968 was  brought into the fold and  was created.

So have NYC end 's lease on the NYC Subway? That include the buses too?

I mean, sure. But...didn't he say the MTA? Seemed like his comment was about the 1968 establishing, so that's what I responded to. And that's what married tolls and transit, since transit needed the tolls to stay solvent. That's why you might argue the city area benefited from the marriage as much as anybody else. 

And no, not really? Again, I don't see where you got that from my comment? I feel like everybody is just picking fights for the sake of them here. I tend to agree with you.

8 minutes ago, Trainmaster5 said:

While we endlessly debate the here and now it seems that many people overlook the obvious or are too young to know. FACT.... the  was not created to run the NYCT bus and subway network. It was created for the benefit of suburbanites. Kinda hard to kick the suburbs to the curb if you look at it that way. The fiscal crisis in NYC is the reason the  is in the picture at all. IIRC NYC still owns the subway system. If I'm mistaken I can be corrected. No hard feelings either way. Carry on.

Well, your point taken, but I'm not sure that's not the most charitable summary of it. You could argue for Rockefeller and Ronan, it was really two factors coinciding – subways in need of funding, and Bridges and Tunnels producing plenty of revenue. I think in their mind, a lot of the benefit was really to city dwellers – now the bus network running a deficit and the subway barely breaking even could be subsidized by Bridges and Tunnels. Moreover, they wouldn't have to raise the fare about 20¢! That was the real heart of the gambit, people sometimes forget.

I think you could say the lifeblood of it has always been the NYC-focused, because Bridges and Tunnels involved river crossings in and out of NYC (not to mention NYCT and MaBSTOA being local). I don't think we can really say it was created for suburbanites; more a happy marriage of a number of interests together. To me, the county executives should really only have control over their proportion of the MTA budget. No more, and no less.

1 hour ago, checkmatechamp13 said:

Percentage-wise, the express buses are more efficient (the fare is $4 higher than the ferry and the subsidy is $1 higher than the ferry). By that logic, we shouldn't be subsidizing the outer portions of Metro-North and LIRR.

Better local bus service would be wonderful out here, but there is still a need for good express bus service. That's like telling NJT to cut all of its PABT routes back to Newark, Secaucus, or Hoboken, and telling everyone to take the PATH or commuter rail into NYC from there.  The express bus easily saves 30-45 minutes compared to a ferry-based or train-based alternative, depending on the exact neighborhood you're coming from. (Granted, if you had a better local bus system feeding into the  that would help, but it's not a complete solution. The SIM1C is still quicker from Lower Manhattan compared to the  to the S79). 

I don't entirely disagree with you, but if you were really evaluating on a need-vs-need basis, you would have to make purely quantitative judgments about subsidized vs. unsubsidized routes. If push came to shove, I'd worry more about providing service in the poorest neighborhoods than the wealthiest. Subsidies for SI express service would be lower priority than maintaining frequencies in eastern Brooklyn and the South Bronx. And naturally, the entire ferry system would be cut in a hurry. But hopefully we don't have to face all of these questions. 

"We need express buses with their wasteful subsidy because we have no subways in the outer boroughs"

"Don't build subways in the outer boroughs because it would change the character of the neighborhood"

Okay.

6 minutes ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

Yes, we deserve every penny we get. Why? Because there hasn't been any subway expansion in the outer boroughs in DECADES. Meanwhile, there is money for the subway expansion in Manhattan (of course), so if you take such issue with the subsidy, the cost to build subways outside of Manhattan would be far far higher.

Good point, the lack of subway access in the outer boroughs is terrible. More reason to better fund and expand the crumbling local bus network. If only we weren't drastically over-subsidizing the express bus network. 

6 minutes ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

Please. I have earned the right to travel as I choose. I have used the subway for many years. I don't owe you or anyone else an explanation of how I choose to spend my money.

2. 30,000 plus express bus riders have a right to rapid transit. We pay taxes. If it wasn't for us wealthier outer borough residents that pay to subsidize plenty of other things, many programs would certainly not be available that are today or they would be with less funding available. You're the type of guy that says yeah tax those with more, but don't think that those same tax payers should get their share of benefits from the taxes they pay. Insanity. Same story with the ferries. You don't want to serve those ferry riders? They pay taxes and tend to be high earners. Don't take our tax dollars then. 

Nobody's disputing your right to public transit. But I will happily dispute the level of subsidy. You actually raise an interesting math question. Are express bus riders so disproportionately funding the NYC tax base that they deserve to be disproportionately subsidized by the MTA? Because by comparison, local bus riders get a raw deal with every extra dollar of express subsidies. Napkin math, I would say that's probably not what's happening – express riders are't rich enough to really make a dent on the tax base. It's the truly rich – millionaires, billionaires – who fund a massive amount of the tax base, and they don't use any forms of public transit at all. So maybe they're the ones missing out! 😉

8 minutes ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

Uh huh. That's why you were talking about getting rid of express bus service. In any event, my point stands, and it's a major reason I started my group. I am sick of the  being Manhattan centric. The outer boroughs and outskirts of NYC also have needs, so yes, I support a restructuring of the board that has representatives for everyone. I would want at least one rep from each borough, including Staten Island since they have had periods in which they have had no representation on the boars, and also one express bus rep as well. There is representation for Metro-North and LIRR riders, but gaps in certain areas.

Two things.

1) That was exactly Gotham's proposal, which I agreed with.

2) Express bus service is subsidized to the tune of $11.79 per rider. It's far and away the most wasteful expenditure in the MTA's operating network. It's actually even more subsidized than de Blasio's ridiculous NYC ferry network. So yes, if tough budget questions had to be answered, express buses are the first places I would cut. Technically speaking, every dollar poured into the express bus subsidy could be put into developing a more robust and timely bus network in the outer boroughs. Poorer local bus riders in Brooklyn in Queens are actually, to my mind, more deserving of that aid than wealthier express bus riders in Staten Island. But we're not ready for that conversation.

3 minutes ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

Sure it does. Your attitude historically has been screw everyone outside of Manhattan. When I lived on Staten Island, you had some pretty disgusting things to say about the borough, and I didn't forget it either. Not all of us desire to live in Manhattan, and we all need transportation, not just the people in Manhattan. I'm an outer borough guy, born and raised and proud.

As far as the East Side project goes, it was needed, but it has gone wayyy over budget unfortunately. That's the only issue I have with it. Get the cost down, but it's too late for that.

That is such bullshit and you know it. You just make stuff up out of thin air. Must you derail every thread? 

[And just for the record, my feelings about the south edges of Staten Island – the bastion of anti-mask, racist right-wingers who saw fit to reward Dan Donovan for letting Pantaleo off the hook in the Garner non-indictment – are actually independent of how I feel about transit service there. Everybody deserves transit access.]

24 minutes ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

Dubious to you, who lives in subway rich Manhattan. You have a plethora of transit options. Those of us outside of Manhattan don't.

C'mon, you're just picking fights for no reason. That has nothing to do with the conversation. We're talking proportionality. We just said that borough presidents (for you in Riverdale, that's Ruben Diaz Jr. of the Bronx; for Staten Island, that's Jimmy Oddo) would have a seat at the table. The question is about why Long Island county executives should have disproportionate say over a primarily NYC-based transit system. 

And if your hill to die on is that East Side Access was the best use of MTA money, please convince me.

3 hours ago, Gotham Bus Co. said:

I like the Los Angeles County MTA approach, with a board made up of elected officials. I would do something similar here and expand the MTA Board as follows...

• NYC (7 members): all five Borough Presidents + Public Advocate + Chair of City Council Transportation Committee

• Outside NYC (7 members):  County Executives — not appointees but the County Executives themselves

• Co-Chairs: NY State Transportation Commissioner (representing the Governor) + NY City Transportation Commissioner (representing the Mayor)

If we bring the outside NYC down to like, 2, or 3, then I'm with you. The County Executives are often useless and insane (i.e., Ed Mangano), and the MTA's primary operations are really NYC-focused. We make a mistake when we blow the budget on dubiously-necessary LIRR boondoogles like East Side Access.

4 hours ago, SevenEleven said:

I nominate @Deucey!!

Too late fam, I already sent in my vote for PinePower.

19 hours ago, Interested Rider said:

The problem here is if he phony media ever did their job, we would not be in this mess in first place.

Not sure why the "media" is "phony" here. If anything, they're just reporting on this nonsense that occurs.

No, we're in this mess because governors use the MTA board positions as a veritable patronage mill for their stooges and flunkies. No amount of press coverage seems to change that corrupt and unethical process.

20 minutes ago, checkmatechamp13 said:

The idea is to break even. They throw in a little extra money if enough people want a certain route restored/maintained/modified but generally-speaking they are cost-neutral.

 

Makes sense. Hell, considering how they massacred some of the existing services, you'd hope there was a cost reduction in there somewhere!

44 minutes ago, Lawrence St said:

So I guess the network redesigns are cancelled at this point, since the doesn't have any money to implement them.

Not sure how costly they all are. Some might be close to break-even. 

Just now, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

Ok, you want an example of reckless spending? Sure... So they needed to provide cleaning. No question there... Why couldn't they use  cleaners to so that? Why sid they have to use contractors? Plenty of  have criticized such moves and I agree. That's just one example. I could go on. When you are facing a budget crunch, you need to look at everything and how you are doing it. I don't think they do that enough. How about the consultant they hired to supposedly look at how to cut costs? I mean really... I don't care that it may seem like only a few bucks to you because their budget is so big. It's wasteful and it adds up, and tax payers pay the price.

The cleaning and PPE was federally-funded through FEMA money. They didn't have a large enough staff internally, so they used outside contractors.

I don't like hiring consultants too much, so I'm sort of with you, but arguably if you hire one guy for $200k/year who identifies $2mil worth of waste, that's a good ROI. That's at least the management logic. 

2 minutes ago, Deucey said:

Modified service isn’t a cut since it’s temporary. People didn’t lose jobs or have to have permanent reassignments, and when backdoor boarding ended, the original schedules were reinstated.

No one’s disputing that. You’re misrepresenting @Via Garibaldi 8’s stance - which is that there’s two separate issues, COVID and long-term improper financial management, and giving money for the former shouldn’t be a massive amount until there’s accountability and reforms regarding the latter.

That’s the issue you’re misrepresenting.

Look, if you view this from a rider's perspective, headways went up massively and there were far fewer buses and trains running. To me, to most of the public, that's a cut. My train that came every 10 minutes comes every 30 minutes – and that goes on for months on end. Call it what you will, that's a cut based on demand. And it does save money. I think it's splitting hairs to say that because it was temporary it's not a cut. It was temporary because there was the expectation of a stimulus coming, and because you can't just lay off tons of public sector workers like that (and nor should you). How about the doomsday cuts that were reinstated a year later, like M8 weekend service? I wouldn't say it was modified service for a year.

The 'long-term mismanagement' leads to budget misses in the tens or hundreds of millions in a given fiscal year. Frankly, I don't teven think it's that causal – a lot of other stuff leads to diminishing revenue, like slower traffic, the rise of ride-share, etc. But regardless. Then the covid 90% reduction in farebox revenue puts us in the billions when it comes to losses. I don't really see why the latter shouldn't be plugged because you have concerns about the former. And his implication is that they're somehow on a similar level, enough that the MTA 'can't be trusted' with money.

1 minute ago, B35 via Church said:

Why did there even have to be a stretch at all, is my point.... If you're beating down someone with facts, why misrepresent their position - especially to a third party (CheckmateChamp) that says "he's with" (as in, in agreement with) your detractor...... If he says he agrees with him, let him have at it.

As far as what you're saying about him trotting a line about never cutting service, I'm not in any disagreement with your & whoever else's counter to that particular sentiment, in regards to that....

I wouldn't say a number of things coming together, but I will say the crisis isn't the sole factor either (hell, even you're hesitant in opining that the budget shortfall is 100% covid related).....

Anyway, in regards to the bolded statement, what are you saying (or claiming), VG8's saying (or claiming), is the supposed motive for this reckless blowing of money?

Your point taken. I was getting frustrated and used shorthand to rephrase it – I don't see it as a misrepresentation but a summation of the natural conclusion. But I'll cop to playing it too broad, that's a fair charge.

As for the supposed motive, your guess as good as mine. 'Spending like a drunken sailor' – on what? And why? He didn't say, just implied they were reckless and running service for no reason. "They had lots of empty buses and trains running around at one point and they left it like that." That's why I took exception to that comment. There's been a tone in all the comments that the MTA just wastes money to waste money, and so they can't be trusted. That isn't really true. I actually think there's a case to be made for MTA wastefulness when it comes to contractors and capital construction costs (paying for workers made redundant by equipment, SAS, etc.), but I disagree with the idea that operating costs are where there's tons of fat. Generally they just run as much service as possible, with margins as close as possible.

9 hours ago, B35 via Church said:

What I don't agree with is misrepresenting someone's position to try to bolster your own.... You didn't even have to resort to that.

When somebody says "they purposely chose not to cut service and wasted more money than they needed to," to sum that up as "they purposely wasted money" is not that much of a stretch. See below, he's still trotting the line out that 'they never cut service' despite Cait Sith, myself, and others all explaining that they did.

8 hours ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

Again, in my mind, they never cut service. They ran modified service because of the pandemic. It's not a question of me getting it wrong. I don't see running modified service as a service cut. That's what I'm saying. It's my opinion and my view of what a service cut is. 2010 was service cuts. They had public hearings and cut service permanently. The modified service they have run this year was because of the pandemic, and as far as I'm concerned, was meant to be temporary.

With that said, it is my opinion that they could have run modified service on some bus and subway lines longer (again my opinion). You don't have to agree with it. You can certainly hold the position that they needed to run the service that they did for essential workers. Fine. I think they could've ran modified service longer to cut back on operating expenses, which perhaps would've meant not having such a huge financial hole. I hope this is clear now.

Finally, my overall position, putting the pandemic rhetoric aside, is that the  would still be facing financial pressure. They were well before COVID, which is why congestion pricing was supposed to help because it would be a more stable revenue source for them, but even with that in place, they would still struggle with their budget. This has been well documented in articles, with the reasons outlined accordingly.

Your position is that they've been starved financially over the years. I agree with that position to an extent, but not enough to say that they are totally innocent in all of this, and their mismanagement over the years (well before COVID) and during COVID is why they're in this mess now. Should they get some funding? Yes... No question that they should, just as every other transit agency. Should they get $12 billion? Absolutely not. That's my position... Clear as can be.

1) That's a distinction without a difference. If the modified service entails a cut in frequency with the goal of saving money, why would you not call it a service cut? This is just splitting hairs. And they're still running modified service, and again, as I've tried to explain, they would still have a huge financial hole no matter what because they lost 90% of farebox revenue.

2) This is like saying that because you had a cut on your knee before, nothing has changed now that you broke your leg. That's about the level of this financial parallel. The MTA would be facing financial pressure on a minuscule degree compared to losing 90% of their main source of revenue. 

3) When it comes to this mess, it's the 90% drop in farebox revenue that got us here. As we discussed before, a budget shortage of $500m (what led to the 2010 doomsday cuts) is barely even on the map compared to the $12b disaster we had now. That's why this doesn't make any sense to act as though they're the same thing. 

7 hours ago, Deucey said:

Except that’s not what he said at all:

What I've tried to explain is that this budget shortfall is just about 90%, 95%, maybe 100% covid-related. It's incorrect to say that this is 'a number of things coming together.' No: this specific shortfall is because they lost 90% of farebox revenue. No transit system can survive that. And when he argue that they purposely chose not to cut to service, as if they intended to keep wasting money, and made that drunken sailor analogy (an image people use when they want to convey people willfully wasting money for no reason), he absolutely implied they were blowing money recklessly for the sake of it.

8 minutes ago, B35 via Church said:

That's not remotely conveying any conspiracy to waste money.... Not in the slightest, fits.

I mean, it was pretty clear from my comment I was using the term loosely, to emphasize his point, but if what he argued were true, then yeah, it would be. Intentionally choosing not to cut service, whether out of some desire to burn money or malfeasance or what. Hence the 'drunken sailor.' And so they shouldn't receive money in the future. That's that he implied was going on. Not really sure what you're staking this fight on...I'm kind of exhausted of arguing back and forth on fact after fact he got wrong here (the service cuts, the size of the deficit, the debt of each year, the congressional process). Maybe you think all that is true. Sorry you didn't agree with my phrasing.

Nice stuff. In terms of this fleet – who knew, lol? I sure haven't been out on the buses (fanning, or riding them) at that hour in a minute...

29 minutes ago, Lex said:

Hell, I can say that those who regularly pay the $2.75 fare are casual riders, less active riders (they ride fairly frequently but not enough to justify a monthly pass), and those who are just barely able to afford the round-trips on a regular basis but are unaware of/not qualified for a reduced-fare MetroCard.

Right, if you asked me I would have said exactly the opposite – $2.75 base is for tourists, chumps, and people who don't ride frequently enough for an unlimited. Sometimes I know I'm not gonna make the unlimited threshold so I use a pay-per-ride, but by and large the unlimited riders are the deeply-committed.

23 minutes ago, B35 via Church said:

Nah, that wasn't what he was conveying in the slightest....

He says they purposely didn't cut service when they could have (which isn't true; and we all showed him examples of how they cut service), and then he implied this is proof of why they have budget trouble / can't be trusted with money. His words: "they didn't scale back on the buses or subways and they could have reduced service in some places. You don't spend like a drunken sailor when the revenue isn't coming in." But that wasn't true. And what we all tried to tell him is that they did scale back, a lot, and they weren't 'spending like a drunken sailor,' they were trying to provide service to essential workers and allow social distancing.

A lot of goal posts got moved as this went on, but don't think you're right to say 'not in the slightest.'