MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber appeared on Hot 97’s Ebro in the Morning to discuss safety, transit equity and riders returning to the subway system. An excerpt of the interview aired this morning. The full interview was posted online and can be seen here.
A transcript of the entire interview appears below.
Ebro Darden: Good morning everyone, Thank you for locking in. Today's guest, the Chair and CEO of the MTA. Big subway talk this morning. Give it up one time for Janno Liber. How are you sir?
Janno Lieber: I'm doing great, how are you doing?
Ebro: Good, thanks. This may be the first time someone from the MTA has come on. Rosenberg, Laura, what do you think?
Laura Stylez: Yeah, I think so.
Peter Rosenberg: I think so.
Ebro: I appreciate you guys on your side making the effort here, reaching out. This is cool.
Lieber: I'm surprised about that. You guys speak to New York every day and we're moving New York every day. It's kind of the heart of what makes New York, New York, so it makes sense to connect.
Ebro: Well absolutely, and we spend a lot of time ridiculing y'all for things that we want changed. So I'm glad you're here so we can get into the nitty gritty about it, and hear the why or why not of certain items. First item, I think this is the big one. Why have we not put up barricades like other cities to prevent people from being pushed into the tracks?
Lieber: This is something that we, the MTA, did long before I got here, but the MTA actually did a 4,000-page study of every station in the system to figure out if it was possible. And it’s possible, but not in as many stations as you and I would like. Without getting too technical, it's engineering stuff. Basically, you can't block the ADA access on the platform, and a lot of those platforms, especially the outdoor ones, can't accept the additional weight. But we are going to find a way to pilot this idea. And Ebro, Laura, and Rosenberg, let me just tell you, there's a lot of other issues about safety that we have to attack. We have people, most of them, mental health issue people, who are getting on the tracks a lot more than the old days, and we have to find a way to interdict that cause that's not just creating really dangerous conditions, but it's also stopping trains and inconveniencing people. So it's more than just the platform doors, it's about finding a way to deal with the whole issue of people on tracks. So, I put together a working group to attack the whole issue. We're gonna come out with some recommendations in the next month.
Stylez: Do you feel that the problem got worse after COVID? During and after COVID?
Lieber: Yeah. Listen, the stats on subway safety, the overall system is pretty safe. The levels of crime compared to what they were when we were all much younger, when I grew up in New York in the 70s and 80s, for example, are much better. But we have a lot of these super high-profile episodes where people who have mental health issues are, you know, the worst one, of course, was someone getting pushed on the tracks. But just generally, they're disproportionately impacting on people's experience in the subway because they're acting out in the system. So, this definitely got worse during COVID. There are more people with those problems who are taking refuge in the subway system. And we're calling on the mayor and the governor, who both are committed on this issue, to figure out, how do we get these people into services and out of the subway system.
Ebro: In the in the past, you know, Laura, myself and Rosenberg talked about the barricades going up at least some of the more high traffic locations. I think understanding that it probably won't be able to go in everywhere, but at least the most heavily trafficked stops in the system. Is that how you guys are going to pilot this?
Lieber: Yeah, we're limited as I said, by the sort of engineering realities right now, but we're going to choose among the stations that can take the additional barricades. We're going to choose ones that as you say, are high traffic, or a lot of people use it, and the platforms might be crowded at times.
Rosenberg: So what else can be done, general safety-wise on the trains right now? There's a lot of concern, whether it's founded or not. And first of all, let me let me start there. How founded are people’s concerns that the subways, post COVID, subways now, are crime-wise, more dangerous than ever. Is that a founded concern?
Lieber: Well, again Rosenberg, I've talked about it before. Overall statistics, the subway is way safer than it used to be, and we’re all old New Yorkers so we remember back in the day. But the big picture is, the numbers of crimes and troubling incidents have gone up since before COVID, right? So, we have to react to that. We have to make sure the subway feels safe because we want everybody to come back to work. It is essential for New Yorkers, especially essential workers and people from lower income communities, that the subway be a place where you feel comfortable, where you can get where you need to go. So, we are again, we're not in control of the policing and the law enforcement issue, but we are urging our partners in the city and the state to take action and help us to bring, to turn the trend around. That's really among the top priorities that I've got working with the Adams administration. In fairness, Mayor Adams and his team have been saying all the right things, and they are committed to try and bring this issue under control.
Ebro: Prior to us starting this conversation, you mentioned that the way our subway system was built is unlike other subway systems around the world. What challenges does that, propose, right? Because our subway system is older than most. You mentioned earlier that it's not as deep as other ones. How does that affect our ability to make safety improvements?
Lieber: Well, you know, it's a good question. I mean, mostly, it's an issue of like, keeping water out, and you and I were kidding around about rats. Those are the principal challenges. We've got a very shallow system. The subway system was built over 100 years ago. They basically dug shallow ditches and put some structure on top and started to run trains. Other places which have newer systems, have been using modern tunnel boring, they go into rock, and it's very much deeper, and it's easier to keep the water out and keep the above grade conditions out. But the challenges we have are both because it's shallow and because it’s old. You know, we saw for example, during Hurricane Ida, all that water getting into the subway system. By the way, we cleared out all that water in a matter of hours and ran rush hour service in the morning, so the system turned out to be incredibly resilient. But water is going to get in and people are building new buildings adjacent to the subway system. And the utilities are knocking holes in the sidewalk, and that creates a lot of problems in terms of physically maintaining this very old structure. Concrete, steel, don't like water, they don't like chemicals. they don't like salt, and all that stuff gets in. And the result is that we have to make serious investments just in the physical structure of the system to make sure it keeps running. The advantage of having a slightly shallower system, of course, folks, is that is that you don't have to go as far to get into it. And what we need to do now is invest in elevators so that this becomes a truly accessible system for people in wheelchairs, people bringing strollers, older people who don't want to go up and down stairs. That has been a priority that I brought to the MTA, and we are knocking out new elevators in the system much, much faster than ever before.
Ebro: How do we prioritize as a city, neighborhoods that are more low income and more vulnerable? It always feels like neighborhoods where poor people live get the short end of the stick, you know, and they don't they don't get as much support. How does the MTA address that?
Lieber: Yeah, it's a really good point. The term that we use in the industry is transit equity. We found out during COVID that the people who depend most on mass transit and who are our best customers, in effect, are people as you say from low-income communities, essential workers, people whose jobs require them to go to work, people whose kids got to go to school and who aren't taking Uber to school, right? So we agree with the premise your question Ebro, which is, equity needs to be a priority in this system. How are we attacking it? Number one, I'm trying to make the bus system much faster. Buses are, in a lot of low-income communities, the only mass transit because people live further away from the rail system. The second, we have to make it so that the bus is faster than walking. And there are a lot of things we're doing, mainly getting the city to put in more bus lanes and having more bus lane enforcement so we can actually have faster buses. The other thing is we're making major investments in communities we call transit deserts, the areas that don't have good mass transit. The East Bronx, we're taking that Amtrak line where they run 25 trains an hour, mostly going to Boston or New Haven, and turning it into a Metro-North line, so people in Co-Op City, all of a sudden, can get to Manhattan, a job in the Central Business District in 30-35 minutes, instead of riding the so-called Express bus for an hour and a half. Right?
Ebro: When will Co-Op City see that?
Lieber: I actually prioritized that project. We awarded the contract at the end of last year and construction is underway. So it's a few years away. It's like four to five years away. But the construction is underway, and everybody in Co-Op, everybody in Parkchester, people in Morris Park all of a sudden, they're connected to the whole region. They can go get jobs north in Westchester and Connecticut for the first time. They couldn't even get there before. So we're prioritizing those investments. The Second Avenue Subway, that neighborhood which is the most mass transit dependent neighborhood in the city in terms of car ownership and so on, they've been promised the subway since literally the 1940s when they started knocking down the elevated train. We're going to build a Second Avenue Subway. And then finally, the governor has made a priority of this new line that we've been thinking about for a while, but she grabbed it and made it a priority, which she calls the Interborough Express. It’s taking an old freight line that runs from Brooklyn waterfront right through Brooklyn, including a lot of those low-income neighborhoods we're talking about, up to Jackson Heights in Queens, transit desert communities connecting them to every rail system and all for the first time, having a lot more Brooklyn, Queens rail transportation, so you don't have to go to Manhattan to get out to Queens or vice versa. You know what I mean? So the investments are trying to prioritize transit equity. And finally, something that I'm passionate about is there is a discount. The cost of mass transit is an issue for some people, right? So we have a discount program in the city of New York for people who qualify as low-income called Fair Fares. The city of New York runs it. And I have been advocating along with the state for that to be expanded so more people get enrolled. There are a lot of people who qualify who don't even know about it, and they're eligible for half-price MetroCards. So we want to get more people in that. And finally, we are actually making the new OMNY system. If you've been riding recently, subways and buses, we have these OMNY readers so you can tap and go like your credit card. And we're turning that into a way of getting people the best fare available so they don't have to choose -- do I lay out the 30-plus bucks at the beginning of the week to get a weekly? You can just tap your way to getting after 12 rides, the 13th and everything beyond in the week is free. So, that is an equity play as well. And you know, we're doing some free like super low-price travel inside the city on the commuter railroads. So if you're in Southeast Queens or Bayside or the Bronx, you can ride Metro-North or Long Island Rail Road around the city for just five bucks, which is almost half of what it would be in normal time. So, so we're doing a lot of stuff, as comes back to your point, transit equity for low-income communities.
Ebro: So with all of this, the investment in new systems, all of it, can the money not fall on the riders? Can this not cause rates to go up, fares to go up? How do we keep fares from going up and still do all of the things you have planned?
Lieber: Alright, it's a good question, Ebro. What we were scheduled to have, the MTA has been following a pattern which has been, I think, reasonably successful having very, very small increases every couple of years, like 4%, right? Every two years for like 2% a year. We said in the middle of COVID, it didn't make sense even to do that small increase. So, last year in 2021, we said no fare increase. This year in 2022, thanks to the additional money that Governor Hochul has elected to give us through the budget, we've also been able to put off a fare increase, so we're putting off fare increases for two years. And on top of that, as I said, we're doing these fare promotions that actually reduce the cost for a lot of people, and we're trying to get more people with this half-price MetroCard program we call Fair Fares. So, you know, we're definitely focused on keeping the price down. It only makes make sense. You're trying to get your riders back, why would you raise the price? Just business logic.
Ebro: Yeah, not only just get riders back because some people they don't have a choice. I think it's even deeper than that, which is, you know, keeping the city functioning, making it so that people can actually live here and work here. Because so many people can't even afford to travel to work, let alone try to build up their family and try to have a great livelihood in general with the work that they’re doing. And I think that our elected officials using our taxpayer dollars, I think it behooves all of us to relieve some of that stress on the most vulnerable, because it just creates a better atmosphere all the way around. And how much is this Build Back Better bill from Biden helping with the money in our state, and specifically with the MTA?
Lieber: Well, let me just come back to your first point, which I think I gotta say amen to all that. You know, my argument has been to the elected officials look, COVID just showed us again and again, that this is the thing that makes it possible for people of moderate and low-income to live in New York, right? They need the mass transit system. So, it showed us that it is an essential service like fire, or police, or sanitation. It’s why the government ought to invest more in it rather than putting it entirely on the rider’s back. So, we are making that point to our friends, and they are friends. Governor Hochul has been great in support of mass transit. But to our friends in elected office, and we're counting on them to help us balance the budget, which, you know, after the federal aid from that came during COVID runs out, we're gonna have a budget deficit. So we're counting on the folks in Albany to help out with that. As far as the Build Back Better, the Biden infrastructure bill, look, you know, we have a $50 billion five-year capital program. We have been investing hugely in trying to grow and modernize and fix up the mass transit system, buses, subways and Long Island Rail Road, and Metro-North. But extra money from Washington is a good thing. So when the Biden infrastructure bill happened, they projected there would be $10 billion more for New York out of that, but a lot of that is money that's going to come over time. You have to compete.
Ebro: You've gotta pitch for the money and have my representative go knock on doors and ring bells and get some of these voices and all that.
Lieber: It's gonna come in over time. So, there isn't some magic bullet coming. The main thing is we've got this substantial capital program as I said to you before, it includes these major transit equity investments as well as state of good repair to maintain the system, we’re investing in elevators for ADA access. We're getting these new projects that are going to serve the communities we need to serve better. Buses, as I told you, we're going to keep doing that with the money from Washington as well as taking advantage of some of the new programs in Washington.
Ebro: And can we get a promise from you, so since it was like 2%, every year increase, which is normal. And now you suspended it for two years, so that’s 4% in increases, that it's not going to be on the books. You're not going to come back in two years and hit us with a 5 or 6% increase, are you? You’re going to stick to the 2%?
Lieber: You know what, you ask me that like I'm in complete control of that? The answer is you can talk to me, but at the end of the day, we're gonna have to work that out with Albany because the subsidies that make it possible for us to keep the fare $2.75 and to give out these new promotions, to make it even cheaper, really depend on how much money we get from Albany. Governor Hochul took the first step by putting in her budget this year, another $300 million. So we didn't have to have a fare increase this year. That's where we are.
Ebro: But it sounds like she wants to permanent job, too, so she's doing all the right things so we appreciate that down here, right? Because normally it feels like New York City and the state of New York is not on the same page when it comes to the subway.
Lieber: It's definitely a different era and the governor and the mayor, the new mayor, seem to be much more in tandem, and the MTA is definitely benefitting.
Ebro: There it is. So back for the audience. But real quick before we let Janno go. One I want to thank you again for coming on the program. Two, I want to let the audience know about my marketing idea with you and the rats. Which is, we get Janno shirtless like Rambo, because Janno sounds like Rambo. And then we put him with a flame thrower in the subway system. And he's just basically beheading rats and getting rid of the rat infestation. It's like a movie, but it's a commercial for the MTA and it makes everybody feel like “yes, get rid of the rats.” Yes or no?
Lieber: Listen, if it brings the right amount of money to keep the fare down, if it brings us money from Albany, I'm all over it.
Ebro: There you go. Thank you so much for your time today, man.
Lieber: Great to be with you guys. Thanks again.
Ebro: And we’ll catch up soon, we’ll be reaching out if we hear any news or anything that needs to be talked about. Thank you for your time.
Lieber: Always happy to do it.