Rally Transcript:
Patrick J. Foye, Chairman and CEO, MTA:
My colleagues and I have come together again today to discuss an issue critical to our survival federal relief for mass transit.
I repeat, there will be no economic recovery regionally or nationally without significant investment in mass transit. This is not a red or blue issue. It’s a jobs issue. Mass transit systems across the country carried the United States throughout the pandemic, and we will carry it out of this crisis. The immediate need is this in order to ensure the health care workers, grocery workers, first responders and other essential personnel can continue to get to work and beat this pandemic, we need substantial federal funding now. If relief doesn’t come soon, these deep cuts at the MTA and other agencies will take effect and they will fall disproportionately on the backs of working people, low-income customers, people of color and low-income communities. We’re all following with intense interest o
MTA and eight other transit agencies around the U.S. participated in a virtual rally yesterday.
New York MTA
On Monday,
RT&S reported on the dire situation public transit agencies find themselves in due to loss of ridership caused by the pandemic. Yesterday, the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) held a virtual rally with eight other large transit agencies across the nation to press the case for a COVID-19 relief package from Congress that includes substantial relief for transit agencies.
Here is part of a press release that MTA released yesterday:
“The New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), today held a virtual rally with the New Orleans Regional Transit Authority (NORTA), Denver Regional Transportation District (RTD), Indianapolis Public Transportation Corporation (IndyGo), Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority (GCRTA), San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART), Utah Transit Authority (UTA), Miami-Dade County Department of Transport
WCPN
Greater Cleveland Regional Transportation Authority bus and train ridership had dropped to record-low levels in 2019. Those already low numbers were cut in half by the pandemic.
Congress is considering a COVID relief bill that would include about $16 billion in aid for public transit. Agencies from around the country, including Cleveland, say they need twice that amount, at least.
“That number was also a short-term and had some assumptions that with the epidemiology and the vaccines coming online and that the ridership would start to rebound a little bit and the economy would get going a little bit,” said Robert Powers, general manager of San Francisco’s Bay Area Rapid Transit, during a Wednesday press call with public transit officials from around the country.