Paying for Stress-A-Journey: Funding the MTA’s crappy paratransit system is secondary to creating it really work

Gov. Hochul correctly needs to fill the opening within the MTA’s farebox brought on by hundreds of thousands of former riders not using on this new work-from-home world. Her name for a small uptick within the payroll tax is warranted, as can be the next piece of the gross sales tax. The opposite devoted taxes is also adjusted or maybe a brand new one may very well be discovered.

However on the lookout for MTA cash from Metropolis Corridor isn’t a brand new income supply, since Mayor Adams has to search out the money, which in the end comes from taxpayers. The largest a part of what Hochul needs from Adams is for town to eat 100% of the price of Entry-A-Journey, the notoriously unhealthy service for folks with disabilities, as a substitute of the truthful 50-50 break up that’s been in place since 2020.

That doesn’t sound like a “cost-sharing” association and it doesn’t make sense for an integral a part of the state-run MTA to be funded totally by town, which might not be in cost. However whoever pays for it, Entry-A-Journey should change.

For 2 hours yesterday earlier than the Metropolis Council, NYC Transit President Wealthy Davey and Entry-A-Journey boss Chris Pangilinan have been peppered with sharp questions, together with how in October the Manhattan U.S. lawyer, Damian Williams, had discovered that the MTA “has failed to offer paratransit companies at a stage of service akin to the extent of service supplied to people who use the [regular subway and bus.]”

Davey mentioned the feds have been utilizing previous knowledge and opened his remarks saying, “I wish to emphasize how essential Entry-A-Journey is to the MTA. We contemplate it equal to our bus and subway companies.” However equal it isn’t, the place a decide up 29 minutes late is taken into account on time. Pangilinan is altering that to 19 minutes in September, however does Davey assume {that a} bus or subway 19 minutes late is simply superb?

Plagued with 20-year-old dispatching software program, why not ask Uber or Lyft for assist? And why not take over ambulette rides and faucet into that Medicaid funding? Restore Entry-A-Journey as a substitute of handing Adams the invoice.