CEO vs. MTA
Save us, Westchester! Biz leaders look to the burbs to help fix mass transit.
New York business leaders are so panicked about the MTA’s fiscal ineptitude that they’re taking emergency action: teaming up with suburban business leaders. Kathryn Wylde, the president of the Partnership for New York City, a group of 200 CEOs (including Henry Kravis, Richard Parsons, and Jerry Speyer), says the business elite views a working transit system as a “top priority” for ensuring the city’s long-term health (and that of their own investments). And they’re not so keen on the MTA’s tax-hike proposals. So they’re joining forces with corporate leaders in the Long Island Association and the Westchester County Association to fund research into “alternative solutions” of their own. But why involve the suburbanites? “We don’t think the MTA’s plan necessarily matches up with the realities of today’s regional transportation demands,” including the rise of the reverse commute, Wylde says. Among the ideas they’re studying: a London-style congestion fee for the center city, and giving that money to mass transit. Not that charging extra to drive into the city seems very suburbanite- friendly.
—Greg Sargent