The MTA bureaucracy has a history of paying consultants to tell them what they want to hear. In that sense, the report on MTA reorganization that was issued on Friday is a breakthrough.
AlixPartners, a consulting firm that specializes in restructuring troubled organizations, has put out an initial report that does not gloss over the serious problems confronting the MTA. It is honest about the current dysfunction of the regional transit system and presents some pretty bold ideas for how to fix it. Their straightforward approach was possible because the client for this report was not the MTA, but the governor and state Legislature, who ordered the preparation of a reorganization plan as part of this year’s state budget.
If successfully implemented, the recommendations outlined promise fundamental improvement in how the $18-billion-a-year MTA behemoth carries out its critical mission.
The plan calls for the agencies that run subways, buses and commuter rail to focus exclusively on their core transportation duties. It would consolidate major construction activity and support services (such as human resources, procurement, engineering, communications) that are now done independently by the various agencies into the central MTA organization.
The report also makes clear that serious progress will require taking on some sacred cows that have long prevented modernization and streamlining of MTA services. For example, it urges the agency to consider outsourcing work currently done by MTA employees, to update union contract terms and work rules, and even to reform state civil-service requirements in order to allow the agency to hire and promote people with skills required to run a 21st century transit system.
These proposals are not necessarily new. Transit advocates, independent commissions and other “outsiders” have put similar ideas forward over the past two decades, as we have seen transit service decline and costs escalate.
So, is this destined to wind up just another another report on the shelf? Hopefully not.
First, it is clear that Gov. Cuomo is all in to fix this broken system. He drove the commitment to reform the MTA into state law, he has put new board members and executive staff in place who are committed to implementing hard change, and he has enlisted the backing of the business community, academics and experts from around the world to ensure that the MTA has all the resources necessary for a true transformation.
Second, state legislative leaders Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Carl Heastie, together with the majority of their respective conferences, are fully on board with the need for MTA reform. They took the politically challenging measure of enacting congestion pricing to generate the necessary funding to ensure that the region can have great transit services in the future. This is not a decision that they would allow to be in vain.
Finally, thanks to leadership by the governor and his team during the past two years, the general public is beginning to see a turnaround in MTA services and in the transparency of its decision-making process. Together with the reprieve on the L train shut-down, people have started to believe that the MTA can be fixed, maybe even trusted, and it can happen in our lifetime.
At this point, the reorganization report is not much more than an outline, with lots to fill in. It still requires buy in from the MTA board, union leaders and the 75,000-plus workers, as well as many constituent groups. But this is a very promising start –—far better than we could have expected last fall, when the prospects of unifying New Yorkers around a solid plan for fixing the transit system seemed unlikely.
The MTA has been among the most prominent objects of derision in New York for more than a decade. This is the opportunity to turn that negativity around and aim for becoming not just the biggest, but the best mass transit system in the Western World.
Wylde is CEO of the Partnership for New York City.
