{"id":312372,"date":"2026-08-03T11:32:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T11:32:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/312372\/"},"modified":"2026-08-03T11:32:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T11:32:12","slug":"bus-fare-evasion-starts-kathy-hochuls-looming-mta-cash-woes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/312372\/","title":{"rendered":"Bus-fare evasion starts Kathy Hochul’s looming MTA cash woes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week,\u00a0Metropolitan\u00a0Transportation Authority\u00a0chief Janno Lieber pointed to one culprit<\/a> behind the steep deficits that loom for the state-run\u00a0transit\u00a0system: Mayor\u00a0Zohran Mamdani\u2019s free-bus push, which spurred\u00a0more people to stop paying.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Gov. Kathy Hochul\u00a0will\u00a0have to\u00a0use her\u00a0leverage to neutralize\u00a0the mayor\u2019s rhetoric\u00a0\u2014 and to fix the upcoming\u00a0$22.8 billion\u00a0MTA budget\u00a0for 2027, whose woes aren\u2019t Mamdani\u2019s fault, but hers.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lieber is right that bus-fare evasion\u00a0is a crisis: With\u00a0more than 48% of riders not paying,\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0nearly five\u00a0times the rate of\u00a0subway evasion.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yet the\u00a0NYPD and the\u00a0MTA had been making progress (respectively) via uniformed and civilian enforcement of fare rules: Evasion inched\u00a0down from above 51%<\/a> two years ago, before Mamdani won\u00a0office\u00a0last fall.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

As Lieber\u00a0said\u00a0Wednesday, \u201cAll the talk of free buses, it does have an impact . . .\u00a0I\u2019m\u00a0not blaming\u00a0anyone,\u00a0I\u2019m\u00a0not telling anyone to shut up.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s\u00a0no surprise that the\u00a0mayor\u00a0who wants the buses to be free\u00a0doesn\u2019t\u00a0care that people aren\u2019t\u00a0paying for them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As\u00a0Mamdani\u00a0said\u00a0in July, with Hochul and Lieber looking on, \u201cWe\u2019ll continue not only to believe, but to work towards making our bus system free as well.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

This\u00a0year,\u00a0NYPD\u00a0tickets for theft of services on the bus are down 73%.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

But\u00a0the MTA\u2019s fiscal problems<\/a> go beyond Mamdani.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Its spending update last week was a blowout: Next year\u2019s budget will be\u00a0up\u00a013% compared to two years ago.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Just since February\u2019s projection, a\u00a0$160 million deficit for next year has\u00a0nearly doubled, to $295 million.<\/p>\n

By 2028, the deficit will top half a billion \u2014 and\u00a0nearly $900 million\u00a0by 2030.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Finance chief\u00a0Jai Patel\u00a0warned\u00a0of that old bogeyman: \u201cstructural cost pressures.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Health benefits for workers and retirees\u00a0are the biggest propellant, up 52% since 2019, to $3 billion\u00a0in 2027.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But the biggest problem here is the governor, as the costs of the settlement of the May weekend LIRR strike become clear.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The authority had\u00a0wanted to hold annual raises for its workforce\u00a0to 2%, as it engages\u00a0now\u00a0in talks with\u00a0the Transport Workers Union,\u00a0which\u00a0staffs\u00a0subways and buses.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

But it\u00a0undermined its stance\u00a0when\u00a0it settled the railroad strike with a 3.8% raise for\u00a0the current\u00a0year, which\u00a0the TWU\u00a0will\u00a0want to match.\u00a0<\/p>\n

These extra costs could consume\u00a0nearly $200 million\u00a0a year.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

At the same time as\u00a0Hochul\u00a0caved to the LIRR,\u00a0she\u00a0expanded pension benefits\u00a0for transit workers\u00a0hired after the 2008\u00a0financial crisis,\u00a0who\u00a0were required\u00a0to pay\u00a0more\u00a0into pensions and retire later.<\/p>\n

Now,\u00a0the MTA will have to pay an\u00a0additional\u00a0$30 million a year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

You might think, here we go again with fare and toll hikes.<\/p>\n

But the MTA is\u00a0already\u00a0accounting for\u00a0a two 4% fare and toll hikes over the next three years.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The\u00a0congestion-pricing toll<\/a> is also rising in 2028,\u00a0from $9 to $12.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That extra money will fall short.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Only\u00a0one person can save the MTA, and\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0not\u00a0the\u00a0mayor.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hochul\u00a0has three tasks:\u00a0<\/p>\n

First,\u00a0tell the public\u00a0that free buses are never going to happen.<\/p>\n

Yes,\u00a0she held the line this year, when Mamdani was at the height of his political power.<\/p>\n

But she needs to be clear that her \u201cnot right now\u201d attitude is\u00a0never.<\/p>\n

The MTA\u00a0is in no position to give up\u00a0$1.1\u00a0billion\u00a0a year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Second,\u00a0until riders get the message, she\u00a0must supervise an\u00a0all-out\u00a0focus on bus evasion.\u00a0<\/p>\n

NYPD officers\u00a0can support\u00a0the MTA\u2019s civilian teams, which\u00a0recently\u00a0started an initiative\u00a0to ask people for proof of payment while on board the bus\u00a0by tapping their OMNY or credit card against a handheld machine.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If Mamdani\u2019s NYPD\u00a0doesn\u2019t\u00a0have enough officers\u00a0to help, she can direct him to add them, with the money he will need from the state for next year\u2019s\u00a0city\u00a0budget as leverage.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Finally, she must \u2014 if\u00a0belatedly\u00a0\u2014 hold the line on union raises.<\/p>\n

Any wage gains must come with labor efficiencies, including a\u00a0curtailment<\/a>\u00a0of bus-driver sick time \u2014 which is harming service.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hochul is vulnerable\u00a0on\u00a0the\u00a0MTA budget: She is the governor who launched congestion pricing, promised for decades by advocates to be\u00a0transformational.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Absent cost\u00a0fixes,\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0just another\u00a0toll or\u00a0tax among the\u00a0MTA\u2019s\u00a0$12.4 billion\u00a0worth of annual\u00a0taxes\u00a0and tolls, from payroll to sales taxes.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mamdani\u2019s not going to shut up\u00a0\u2014 but Hochul can ensure that his words\u00a0are\u00a0irrelevant.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Nicole Gelinas is a\u00a0contributing editor to the Manhattan Institute\u2019s City Journal.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last week,\u00a0Metropolitan\u00a0Transportation Authority\u00a0chief Janno Lieber pointed to one culprit behind the steep deficits that loom for the state-run\u00a0transit\u00a0system:…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":312373,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1209,426,1606,141,9,24,55,54,56,103,299,615,25637,8397,82],"class_list":["post-312372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-buses","tag-kathy-hochul","tag-lirr","tag-mta","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-ny","tag-nypd","tag-opinion","tag-subway","tag-subway-fare","tag-transport-workers-union","tag-zohran-mamdani"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312372\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}