Opinion

It’s all hands on deck to save the MTA from collapse

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is running on fumes. If it doesn’t get another emergency infusion of cash, emergency cutbacks will slam the city just as it is trying to get back on its feet.

New York’s importance to the national economy makes it Congress’ duty to help out — but the city, state and the MTA’s unions need to step up, too.

The pandemic has cost the transit agency roughly $10 billion, thanks to lost fares as well a collapse in its dedicated tax revenues. It’s hoping for $3.9 billion in new emergency federal funding — or it may have no choice but to shut down entire subway lines, with the layoffs that entails.

That would mean greater crowding on the trains that keep running, and thus bigger coronavirus risks — just one reason why the city and state, however broke, need to pony up, too.

The agency’s tax revenues alone will come in $2.7 billion short of pre-pandemic expectations, the city Independent Budget Office projects. And it’s collecting no cash from bus fares for now, even as ridership there has held up better than on the subway. It has put virtually all expansion and upgrade work on hold, but that barely dents the deficit.

The US House of Representatives has passed an $11.75 billion bill to a bail out transit nationwide, with nearly $4 billion for the MTA. But the Republican-run Senate won’t sign off as easily.

Gov. Cuomo, Mayor de Blasio, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and City Council Speaker Corey Johnson can’t just sit by and hope the feds take care of everything.

Nor can the MTA unions expect to be held harmless. One of them, ATU Local 276, is pushing for the same raise that TWU Local 100 won last year.

That’s nuts: Layoffs seem guaranteed unless labor agrees to some kind of cost savings, through work-rule reform at a bare minimum. And the clear prospect of major productivity gains is the best way to convince dubious US senators to OK a bailout.

It’s time for every stakeholder to step up.