Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) Chair and CEO Janno Lieber appeared live on WNYC's The Brian Lehrer Show to discuss transportation-related topics.
A transcript of the interview appears below.
Brian Lehrer: It’s the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. We’ll begin today with the head of the MTA Janno Lieber with a lot of news right now about the Trump administration’s interactions with the transit system around here. That includes a takeover from the MTA, the renovation of Penn Station, and another deadline for an end to the congestion pricing toll from Manhattan below 60th Street. It might even include their interactions with the Trump administration, a new transportation funding formula based on an area’s marriage and birth rates. Have you heard that one yet? So, we’ll talk about those things as well as transit news that has nothing to do with the changes in Washington. Janno Lieber is Chair and CEO of the MTA. Chairman Lieber, we always appreciate when you come on with us. Welcome back to WNYC.
Janno Lieber: Good to be with you Brian.
Lehrer: And listeners, our lines are open for your questions, comments, and stories, 212-433-WNYC. Call about the state of your bus or train line, or public safety, or the warning from the MTA about another potential quote “Summer of Hell”, regarding equipment problems or funding and policy issues, or how congestion pricing is affecting you for better or worse, or what kind of Penn Station reno you want to see? Classical like Trump seems to prefer? Brutalist? Modern? Do you even care as long as the train service is good? Does Penn Station even need more reconstruction? The New York Post says it doesn't. We'll get to that, but you tell us or ask any MTA related question. 212-433-WNYC call or text. 212-433-9692. Chairman Lieber let's start with Penn Station. As most of our listeners know, subway lines, Amtrak, NJ Transit and Long Island Rail Road all go there. Metro-North will, too, in a couple of years. Remind everybody what the goal is for improving it. They've actually been two separate projects that the feds now say they'll combine, right?
Lieber: Yeah. I mean, here's the bottom line is that the MTA riders, Long Island Rail Road riders, but especially subway riders on the Eighth Avenue Line, the A and the C and the E, and also the 1/2/3 Seventh Avenue Line are by far the largest group of riders who come into Penn Station. But we're not, we don't own the station. We're a tenant, and Amtrak, the federal government, is the landlord. So, we fixed up the portion of the station that our riders use the most and that we control. It's part of our lease. That's that concourse running along 33rd Street from the Seventh Avenue subway to the Eighth Avenue subway and on out to Moynihan Station, which was also developed by the State of New York. I was involved with that project as well years ago. So, we fixed up the piece that impacts Long Island Rail Road and subway riders, and it's really it's really popular with the riders. We doubled the width of the concourse, we raised the height because Amtrak wasn't on top of us, it was under the street, under 33rd Street, we're able to raise the ceiling height, and we put in new retail and new amenities, and riders love it. We've been working on a plan to try to expand that kind of condition, modern transportation facility to the whole station. We understand that in an ideal world, people love it if Madison Square Garden moved, and we could start all over again and get a super grand version of the station like the one we lost 50 plus years ago. But I live in the real world, and I want passengers to have really safe, convenient, and usable facilities. So, we were moving pretty quickly to try to make the rest of the station as good as that 33rd Street concourse project. But the federal government, the new administration came in, and they said you can't do this. We're giving it to Amtrak. That's okay. If I'm, you know, if you want, the landlord wants to come in and fix the whole station, because they own the whole thing, and if the rest of Penn Station that we haven't fixed up is kind of a dump, especially the areas that Amtrak controls, which are filled with back office operations that have no business. It should be used, the areas should be used, for passengers and public use. I'm okay with that. Governor Hochul has been pushing Penn Station and tried to get President Trump to become a partner in this. Apparently, the feds said we don't want a partner. We're just going to take over the whole thing and do it. Our attitude is great. Would you just please get started, and by the way, make sure that New Yorkers who use the station have a voice in making sure it works well for them.
Lehrer: I want to read to you, you've probably seen it, and the listeners from this New York Post Editorial that supports the Trump takeover of the project, but with a premise that may surprise a lot of people. They write: “Penn Station is now just fine as it is. For the hundreds of thousands of commuters who flow through daily recent projects have done more than enough. NJ Transit and the LIRR have perfectly fine new vestibules, entrances and exits, including Moynihan Station.” They like what you were just describing. You know about the Long Island Rail Road concourse. And it says for that reason, quote, “this development isn't remotely about President Donald Trump looking to put yet more of his stamp on the city. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is just protecting federal taxpayers from another New York scam.” And then it says, “the only reason to do anything beyond maybe some track extension work at Penn now is to provide cash baths for the connected and a pretext for politicians to fundraise for monied interest.” Finally, it says, “the MTA certainly has far better uses for any cash that comes its way. It was only dragged into these plans as a pawn in the pol’s games.” So, that from the New York Post Editorial Board. How do you react to any of that, including the notion that Penn Station is fine now as it is, and all this money, whether it's coming from, you know, local or the federal government is mostly unnecessary?
Lieber: Well, I think one thing I would say, and you heard it from me before, is Penn Station's a lot better because of that project that we did, most of it during COVID. We got a huge new escalator bank that went out to Seventh Avenue. Before we did that project, people would wander around Seventh Avenue right in front of Penn Station, saying, where is Penn Station? The biggest transportation facility in the United States. We fixed that. We made it a better place for Long Island Rail Road and subway commuters. We wanted to extend that kind of improvement. Governor Hochul actually wanted to extend that improvement to the rest of the station and also to bring in natural light. It's possible to have this place not feel like a basement, a catacomb, bring in some natural light, improve passage circulation, make it easier to get on and off the platforms where there's a lot of, you know, there are a lot of choke points. But, you know, without reacting specifically to the Post, I would say the premise that it could be done more, you know, a project of moderate size and ambition could be accomplished is not insane. There is a project, and, you know, I don't want to be flip about the money because we're talking about hundreds of millions or billions of dollars, but it doesn't have to be an entire rebuild to the station. You could get something significant done in the short term. And you know, if that's what they want to do, we're all ears. We're ready to work with them. I mean, there was notwithstanding the kind of punitive vibe that came through in the way it was announced by the federal government. As Governor Hochul said, if they want to take over this project and save New York’s money that we've been setting aside for this and work with us on getting a practical solution in the short term, we're all ears.
Lehrer: I’m going to take a caller who I think will kind of echo some of what was in that editorial, but it's also a perennial that, you know, we always hear, and I'm sure you always hear, as a critique of the MTA. Daniel in Queens you’re on WNYC with MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber. Hi Daniel.
Caller 1: Hi Brian. Thanks for having me. I just want, I'm actually really grateful I have the opportunity to call, and, you know, respectfully vent some of my frustrations. The thing with the congestion pricing that baffles me is, you know, this city has the most billionaires in the entire world. I think they're worth like $700 billion, and we're talking about capital projects. And then you're raising capital off the backs of working-class people instead of raising capital from capital. I mean, you could have done like a modest one or two percent tax and got all off the money you needed for any capital improvements. And then, we're paying every day, the conditions aren't the best, you know the stations are sometimes dirty. You know, the trains are delayed, yada yada, and the projects, the improvements, they go on forever. Like you go, like I'm here Union Turnpike, Kew Gardens, and the project to fix just the stairs is like eight months overdue. It was supposed to be done in September. Like how come in Europe, they're building similar mechanicals, similar length of track, on budget, on time, for much less, for like you know, exorbitantly less than we spent. Like?
Lehrer: Daniel, let me stop you there and get a response. I didn't realize he was going to peg it to congestion pricing in particular, which we're going to talk about in some detail later. But that critique is a perennial, and it gets attached to the reno of Penn Station and lots of things.
Lieber: So, it is, and any time I hear from a rider on your show or otherwise who's frustrated, I got to listen. But here are a few facts that I think are relevant to this. Number one, subway service is now 84% on time performance, it's the best it's been in over 12 years. That's relevant. Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North service is the, literally the best service it's been ever. 97% Long Island Rail Road, 98.5% Metro-North. Service has been improving. We are carrying more riders, statistically, and it ain’t perfect for sure. Subway safety is way up over where it was last year, and even up versus where it was before COVID. We have to do a lot of things, working closely with the NYPD and with a lot of investment from the governor, to make the system feel safer, but we have made tremendous progress on that. On the cost and duration of capital projects, I came into the MTA to run the capital projects division after I had run the World Trade Center for 14 years, for, on the private sector side, which was, you know, a bit of a long process and a lot of fighting, but we got it done.
We came in, we took the L train project, did it six months faster, $100 million under budget. The Third Track project on Long Island, a 10-mile-long project through the center of the most congested part of Long Island, $100 million also under budget. We're knocking out those ADA station projects, again much faster than the old MTA and really saving a ton of money and getting them done on schedule. You know, I'm very sympathetic to Daniel, because when we do these projects, they are much more complicated than the public understands. When you're working with underground utilities. Even when you're doing a stair, you're tearing up like a huge network of underground utilities, and it takes longer than it feels like it should to do a simple project. But this MTA is getting work done on time and on budget more than every other MTA before it.
Now, for Long Island, for a guy like Daniel who lives in Forest Hills or Kew Gardens, let me tell you, all of a sudden, we're running 40% Long Island Rail Road service more than before COVID, more than before we opened that Grand Central Madison project, and lo and behold, a lot of that extra service is going to Queens. We made the cost of traveling on the Long Island Rail Road, Metro-North, inside the city -- five bucks -- instead of like almost half of what, less than half of what it was before. And we're providing a ton more service to Kew Gardens and Forest Hills and places like that through our City Ticket discount. And the Queens Boulevard line, which hugely impacts him, is getting modern signals. And we have redesigned the Queens bus system, the route network which hadn't been touched in like 75 years, so that we no longer go to abandoned trolley terminals, we actually go where people want to shop, and go to school, and get to work. So, Queens is winning. The MTA is doing projects on time and on budget. But you know, I'm always going to listen to people like Daniel, who have their frustrations because projects take long, feel like they take a long time.
Lehrer: I’m just curious, Daniel you feel any better after hearing that answer?
Caller 1: No. I mean, I appreciate, you know, that things are being done for less than they were before, or in a shorter time than they were before. But if you still look, I don't have the data in front of me, but anyone can look it up. If you see what our counterparts in industrialized nations in Europe spend for similar lengths of track, similar mechanicals, capital improvements, they do it for less, and they do it for much, they do it much, much quicker. So, I guess the frustration is like, how can they, like the Second Avenue, the Q line took forever. I mean we all know that was way over budget and way over schedule. So, my question is like I want more…
Lehrer: Hang on.
Lieber: Let me come back because you are going to have to take other callers.
Lehrer: Yeah, of course.
Lieber: I came in right after the Second Avenue subway project was, the first phase of it was finished, and I tore that project apart and figured out what had gone wrong. We learned a ton from it. I'm not going to enumerate all of it. We changed a ton of things, so that we make sure that you don't have to freeze the ground in order to do proper excavation. You make sure that you don't end up with contractors responsible for the communication systems and the other work in a station aren’t running into each other, and on and on and on. I would go through that in detail with Daniel. We've addressed a lot of those issues. We're doing much, much better. And as far as how we compare to the rest of the world, the rest of the world doesn't run 24/7 systems, so we have to have duplicate major mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems so we can never turn the system off entirely. We carry so many more people on our system that for fire safety reasons, we need to build more escalators, and stairs, and everything, and everything, and everything. It's a longer conversation. But believe me, I look at those international numbers, and we evaluate ourselves really tough on those benchmarks. There are, there are reasons to be hopeful on that front.
Lehrer: Daniel, thank you for your call. On Penn Station. You've reminded everyone that the MTA is the biggest lease holder there, and you expect the MTA, even with the federal takeover of the renovation quote, “to participate in the administration's and Amtrak's efforts to ensure future plans meet the needs of everyone who uses it.” So, are there certain priorities you want to state specifically or concerns about what they might do that your statement perhaps implies about what might be done wrong?
Lieber: Well, our priorities are pretty straightforward. One, passenger circulation. We need to open it up like we did on that 33rd Street concourse, so you're not walking down the Hilton corridor, which is about three feet wide and barely six feet in height. It feels like you're in the catacombs of, you know, some ancient city. So, opening it up, passenger circulation, a lot of passenger information, better amenities including retail. And then we need to deal with basic stuff like the ventilation system was designed for 200,000 people, and Penn Station gets five to 600,000 people. That's a safety issue. You need to deal with the basic stuff, passenger circulation, passenger navigation, ventilation, entrances. We need more entrances. Grand Central’s great because it's got like 25 different ways to get in or out from all directions. Penn Station feels like you're locked in an underground basement with only one way out in each direction. We need to change that. Those are our priorities. Our customers cannot wait decades for another round of blah, blah about Penn Station. That's one of the reasons, although I'm sympathetic to the folks who are very architecturally oriented and want to you know, are focused on like move Madison Square Garden, then build a new Penn Station. I get why people are, you know, are passionate about undoing that piece of architectural history where we knock down the old Penn Station. But New York can't wait another 30 years for a Penn Station to be functional. We can make it pretty good if we focus on the basics better. You know, I went through it, Brian, so I won't repeat it again.
Lehrer: Yeah, yeah. I think the Trump Plan is to move Madison Square Garden. Are you saying you oppose that?
Lieber: I don’t know if that’s the plan. They were not clear at all, just that it was going to be, you know, Penn Station would be great again, so. But the main thing I’m concerned about is, in the meantime, don’t screw up the service. You know, our riders have endured these constant, these different construction projects over time. Long Island Rail Road service has unbelievably expanded since we opened Grand Central Madison – 40% more service. We’ve got, Long Island Rail Road got the highest ridership, relative to pre-COVID, of any, maybe, any transit service in the country. It’s over 85% of pre-COVID and growing. The weekends are 110-115% of pre-COVID. Don’t screw up the service. And I’m very worried, that we haven’t talked a lot about it, but Amtrak is starting to work on the East River tunnels, a project they’ve been talking about doing since Hurricane Sandy over ten years ago. They’re finally getting around to it now, and I am focused on making sure they don’t screw up service. They’ve already taken down a couple of trains to Albany, which is their responsibility. I don’t want them to screw up Long Island Rail Road service. That’s where I’m focused right now.
Lehrer: One last Penn Station question. And this is just something that I, maybe many riders, are curious about. I see Metro-North is supposed to start coming into there, in addition to Grand Central Terminal, when that work is completed, I think it’s supposed to be 2027. Currently, all the inbound trains on all the branches stop at 125th Street on the East Side before reaching Grand Central. Will they still do that and cross over to the West Side after that? Or will there be a West Side equivalent to 125th station? Or how will that work?
Lieber: Brian, you’re Mister New York. I’m gonna, we gotta bring you up to speed. There is a project called Penn Access, Metro-North Penn Access, which is going to take Metro-North trains, starting in New Rochelle, down what we call the Hell Gate Line, you know, that comes over the Hell Gate Bridge into Queens. It’s owned by Amtrak. We’re taking a two-track railroad that Amtrak uses, and never has stopped in the Bronx, and adding four stations in the Bronx, so people in Co-op City, and Parkchester, and Hunts Point, and Morris Park, can actually get much faster to the Central Business District. This is a huge opportunity for folks in the East Bronx, who are a little out of the transit rail world, at least, to get into first-class mass transit. And then those trains are going to go east onto the Hell Gate Line, then into Queens, and then into Penn Station. And it’s a huge thing for the folks in the – but what you’re thinking of I think is – what we would like to do, which is to take the Hudson Line, that comes down the Hudson River, and then has to, sort of, you know, go east to get to Grand Central. We’ve been talking about, can we bring it straight down where Amtrak goes up the west side and into Penn directly, which would save time, and give people...
Lehrer: Whoops. Did we lose Chairman Lieber? Did he lose me? No, I’m still on. Ok, we just lost, for the moment, I’m sure we’ll get him back, MTA Chair Janno Lieber. I’ll tell you what. We will take a break and by the time we come back, we should have him back, and we’ll go onto congestion pricing and other things. Stay with us.
Commercial break
Lehrer: On tomorrow’s Brian Lehrer Show, Congressman Mike Lawler, who represents parts of Westchester, Rockland, and Putnam, and Dutchess counties, will be here to talk about his work in Washington, as part of the Republican majority. Also, perhaps, about his likely run for Governor next year. Plus, the Atlantic’s David Graham looks at where the initial actions of the Trump Administration align with the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025. That and more on tomorrow’s Brian Lehrer Show.
Commerical break
Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. And we have the line back now to MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber. Before I move on, just for people who might be curious, who maybe living on the Hudson Line, you know, which goes all the way up to Poughkeepsie, I think you were in the weeds there with what would happen after Marble Hill – which is where it goes east. Would it now go down to Penn Station, from there, on the west side?
Lieber: Now, now you’re showing off your geography, Brian, that you’re a northern Manhattan guy. Yeah. We would go down, cross over that bridge at Sputyen Duyvil, and go straight down the west side, through what they call the Empire Line into Penn. There’s a lot of complicated engineering…
Lehrer: Right
Lieber: And construction issues – but that’s something that we are really interested in and exploring. Save time, give more optionality. But, let me tell you, I just heard you’re having Mike Lawler on tomorrow, the Congressman from Rockland County. Could you please ask him what are the Republican Congressman who represent New York City and the suburbs doing for transit in Washington. It used to be Al D’Amato and other Republicans, who represent New York in Washington, fought for transit. And it seems like, instead of running an “I Love New York” campaign, those congressman representing the New York region, are running a “I Hate New York” campaign. They need to stand up for their 90% of their constituents who use mass transit. And I’m trying to get Lawler and the rest of those characters to speak up for mass transit funding in New York, instead of attacking New York City and the MTA, which most of their constituents rely on.
Lehrer: All right. Control Room – save that clip. I have a feeling we may re-air it with the Congressman tomorrow. Some breaking news. And I don’t even know if you have heard this yet. But we just published this on Gothamist like minutes ago. The federal government appears to have accidentally published an internal memo, in the lawsuit over congestion pricing. It states the current legal arguments to kill the program are on shaky ground. But it also states there could still be a way to kill the program through the Office of Management and Budget. So, I’m curious – have you seen this filing yet? And, if so, what do you make of it?
Lieber: So, I’m not commenting on any of that, you know, the sort of the proprieties of legal practice, say, when someone does something accidental it isn’t a topic of discussion. It kind of gets made invisible. But the bottom line here is, we have, whether it was in response to whatever they’re talking about internally, whatever Secretary Duffy is tweeting or saying on Fox News, we have always been absolutely confident that congestion pricing could not be taken down unilaterally by the federal government; that they are not entitled to terminate the program, under the terms of the federal value pricing program, which is what it's called, or just basic legal realities. We have a contract with the federal government. They want to terminate the contract. And it’s now in front of a judge. So, we’re going to let the legal process, the federal judge in the Southern District, decide whether they’re right or we’re right. We’re very confident in our position and whatever they’re saying internally is not where my head is focused.
Lehrer: All right, we are going to take a Jersey question for you and then a Connecticut question for you. A listener writes in a text message: “I don’t think you mentioned N-J Transit access to Penn Station. What are the plans for improvements, which are desperately needed?”
Lieber: Yeah, I mean our approach was to actually fix the New Jersey Transit side of Penn Station. New Jersey Transit is sort of the southern end of the existing Penn Station and they have, notwithstanding what the Post wrote today, they have a really cramped area that has a lot of problems as well. But they also are tenants of Amtrak. So I think we would all like to see the federal government fix something that, that works for Long Island Rail Road and the subway customers. We’re the biggest customer base. And also NJ Transit. We were planning to deal with that side of the terminal, the existing terminal, as well. New Jersey Transit does have a lot of riders. But they’ve been in a freefall economically. And in terms of their service over the last year or so, because New Jersey has not prioritized mass transit. They’ve been underfunding it. They haven’t dealt with the physical, the decaying physical infrastructure. Chicago is in freefall financially and may have to cut service dramatically. SEPTA in Philadelphia is talking about cutting service 50%.
Lehrer: Wow.
Lieber: Kathy Hochul and with support from the legislature, dealt with MTA financial issues coming out of COVID two years ago. So we’re in a solid position. We’re increasing service on bus, on subway, and especially on commuter rails. And unlike the rest of the transit world, we’re in a strong position financially. We just need to get through some of these federal dramas.
Lehrer: Michael in Greenwich. You’re on WNYC with MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber. Hi, Michael.
Caller [Michael]: Hi. I’m just curious if Mr. Lieber could comment on the effective transit alliance’s report on through-running. I know that you have already, sort of, not you personally. I know the MTA has sort of dismissed it. And I’m just curious, like, what, if you could give some more reasons about why through-running isn’t going to work for Penn Station.
Lehrer: By through-running, you mean taking the New York lines that go into Penn Station and continuing . . .
Caller [Michael]: Right.
Lehrer: . . . to New Jersey without having to change to NJ Transit?
Caller [Michael]: Thank you, Brian. Yes.
Lieber: Yeah. I mean, listen. Your info is a little wrong, my friend. We actually think through-running is positive and we want to configure Penn Station at the track level and through any expansion of the tunnel capacity and so on to accommodate future through running. So, we are not the decision makers. Frankly, a lot of this is being driven by Amtrak and NJT’s desire to deal with station capacity by building a whole new terminal, which would, in their view, tear up a block of New York City. Governor Hochul said that she doesn’t prefer that approach. And we are actually interested in through-running now. Some of the constraints are real. We don’t have that much tunnel capacity right now across the East River that we could magically, you know in the peak, you’re full up. But we are interested in doing that. Obviously, New Jersey Transit has big infrastructure issues that would need to be dealt with before we could contemplate cross-state transit. But, in principle, we’re open to discussion, especially as we’re trying to plan for the future.
Lehrer: Barbara in Brooklyn, you’re on WNYC with Janno Lieber. Hello.
Caller [Barbara]: Oh, hi. Mr. Lieber, in March, this March, seven bus stops were permanently removed on Kings Highway in Brooklyn, where I live, as part of a renovation project, including my bus stop. This action has seriously affected the day-to-day life of the people in the area, as you can imagine. There’s a long gap between remaining bus stops. There was absolutely no advance notice of this removal. No forewarning. No community meetings. No survey of users at these bus stops. The area is a food desert. There are no close grocery stores. I’m 81 years old. I’m a senior citizen as are many in the area. I have great difficulty walking. And there’s already an express bus on the street. What can I do?
Lieber: OK, so, number one, you’ve already done the first thing which is to let us know. I don’t know that particular situation, Barbara. But we’ll look into it right away. And we’ll put something on the website in answer to your query. We don’t normally-- We are engaged in a bus redesign project for Brooklyn so that we can make bus service better. We’ve done it in Queens. We’ve done it in the Bronx. We did it for Staten Island express buses. But this is not from that, it’s a temporary condition. I’ll have to get to the bottom of what may have prompted it, as you said. Do you know what bus is it, that you ride in that area? And we’ll look into it.
Caller [Barbara]: Sure, sure. It’s the B82 bus and the B7 bus.
Lieber: OK.
Caller [Barbara]: And there already is what they call the Select B82 bus that’s unaffected by this.
Lieber: OK, but, listen, we’ll take a look at it. Like I said, we’ll put something out on the website and maybe share it with WNYC so they could put it up, too, and try to answer your question that way. I just don’t have an answer right at hand.
Lehrer: That would be great. Barbara, thank you for your question. I have a bus question. You know, there's a mayoral primary going on in the city right now, and one of the candidates, Zohran Mamdani, Assemblyman from Queens, talked on the show recently about his proposal to make city buses free. He says, among other things, the pilot program that you've had with a few bus lines saw a, 38% I think his number was, decrease in assaults against bus drivers. So, I'm curious if you have the same number or an opinion on the feasibility or desirability of that proposal.
Lieber: Number one, we have reduced the number of assaults against MTA employees year over year and we're attacking that issue hugely. A public servant who's just out there doing his job or her job doesn't deserve to get attacked or spat on or disrespected. In fact, we're running a public information campaign on all the screens we have about respect for our MTA workers, because that is a serious issue, and I don't want any of our bus drivers to experience that here. Here's the bottom line on free buses. Mamdani is a supporter of transit and we love having support of transit in elected office. We tried his idea of free buses on different lines. Most of the additional ridership was identified cannibalized other lines. So, you're taking people who are paying on other lines and they were just getting a free ride, which isn't evil, but my basic principle is, I want to target our subsidy to people who need it, which is why we support the fair fares program so strongly. It's the program that gives people of low income a half price ride like as if you were a senior, and we have pushed the expansion of that. We push for making the eligibility at a higher income level, and we're signing people up like crazy. Even though it's not our program, it's the city's program, we're the ones signing people up at our customer service centers because we want people to become eligible who are at the low income level. But frankly, I don't want to subsidize middle class and upper middle class New Yorkers who are using the system, who can pay and who get the advantage of the fact that the transit costs like 15% of the cost of owning a car. I don't want to subsidize those people at the cost of not being able to do other stuff. Honestly, that's my view of the Mamdani free bus agenda. I love the support for transit, but that's my view.
Lehrer: Listener writes in a text, “I am disabled. How many elevators are being built with congestion pricing? Saw some small number, 29% accessible stations, more than 20 out of order at any time,” writes the listener, I don't know if you'll disagree with the number, but, they write “how many New Yorkers have mobility issues? Also, the closer I get to the Bronx, the more dirty and in disrepair.” I guess they mean the elevators. “Unfortunately, I am forced to drive more.” What do you say to that listener and others who have disabilities?
Lieber: Brian, you and I talked about this before. I'm passionate about accessibility. When I got into this job, we had, like, under 100 stations were accessible. We're now well over 150 and we're building, I think we have like, another 70 that are in process. The congestion pricing is paying for a lot more ADA elevators. The new capital program, which is on the verge of being approved in Albany, will pay for another 60 to 70 new stations. We have settled the litigation with the disability groups, who were rightfully frustrated that New York was moving so slowly towards full transit accessibility. We're doing ADA stations five times as fast as the MTAs of the past. I'm very proud of that, very committed to it. The bus system is 100% accessible. The paratransit system, Access-A-Ride, which is now mostly through black cars, for-hire vehicles, is now wildly more popular than it was before, with the highest customer satisfaction rate of any service that almost anyone in the New York area operates. We’re at like 120% of where we were just a year ago, and double where we were a couple years ago. So, we're trying to deal with the needs of folks who have disabilities and mobility impairments. The transit system, bottom line, should be accessible to everybody, whether they're in a wheelchair, or they have a stroller, whether they’re just a regular old senior who doesn't like to climb stairs. We’ve got to make the system accessible. We're on the road to get there.
Lehrer: Listener writes, “Yonkers and the Bee Line no longer have free transfer because of OMNY cards.” I guess that's when people are coming in on buses from Westchester. Listener writes, “What can I do?”
Lieber: Okay, well, number one, you do have free transfer. It's true. The Bee Line in Westchester does not yet have an OMNY system that's on them, but we push them, and they are on the path to get OMNY implemented by the time that we phase out MetroCard sales at the end of this year. So, we will get there. In the meantime, the listener is right. You can't use OMNY on Bee Line, but by the time we have only OMNY at the end of this year, Bee Line will be on the system based on, you know, the what they are doing right now, and we're pushing them to get there.
Lehrer: All right, I know you got to go in a minute. I want to thank you before you go for doing these segments with us periodically. And you know, when you come on a show like this, like any leader who goes to a town hall meeting, who has a job like yours, is going to get a lot of tough questions and a lot of people who are angry about one thing or another, even if they appreciate mass transit generally. So, I want to thank you for your accessibility to us and to our listeners and to the public. Therefore, last question. I mentioned in the intro the statement by Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy that transportation funding may go to more areas of the U.S. with high birth and marriage rates to incentivize those lifestyles that they want to promote. Do you have a reaction to that, or how the MTA region would stack up?
Lieber: Honestly, to me that's a head scratcher. What we're trying to do is to provide service to the areas that have that are most dependent on mass transit, and that's New York where transit is what makes New York possible. I always say, for New Yorkers, transits like air and water, we need it to survive. I don't know why you'd give the money to, you know, Salt Lake City, because they have bigger families, even though they don't use transit, although a member of my staff coined a funny phrase, calling what Duffy's proposing “conception pricing,” I kind of dug that and thought I'd share it.
Lehrer: Ending with a joke. The Chair and CEO of the MTA Janno Lieber. Again, we appreciate it. Thank you very much.
Lieber: You bet.