Gov. Hochul made a rare gubernatorial appearance at an MTA board meeting Wednesday — the first gathering of the agency’s leadership since state lawmakers fully funded the MTA in their April budget.
“I’m told I’m the first governor to have ever delivered remarks at an MTA meeting,” Hochul said. “But now I guess I make history again because I’ve done it twice now. We’ll put that one in the books.”
The governor said she’d spoken with straphangers on the 4/5 line on her way to the MTA’s Bowling Green headquarters Wednesday.
“It just made my heart burst with pride to see we really are back,” she said of her crowded subway car.
Hochul’s appearance at 2 Broadway served as a victory lap for her administration’s efforts to fund the MTA — including a $300 million lump-sum payment to the agency, a $500 million share of the licensing fees from downstate casinos and $1.1 billion in the form of a payroll tax increase on large New York City businesses.
“We approached this with an all-hands-on-deck approach,” she said. “We knew we needed fiscal discipline, but we had to say that this budget would need to be there to save New York City Transit.”
The budget also included $65 million for expanded subway service across a dozen lines and a pilot program intended to put a free bus route in each borough.
“I want to send a clear message here: the success of the MTA is not negotiable — It has to happen,” Hochul said.
“You must be successful,” she told the board, “and you can’t be always looking over your shoulder [asking], ‘Do we have enough money to just keep the trains running — literally?’”
The governor voiced her continued support for congestion pricing — and the $1 billion it’s expected to bring annually to the MTA’s capital project coffers.
“The streets are paralyzed,” she said, reaffirming her support of the state’s congestion pricing plan. “The traffic has come back at even higher levels than we had before the…
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