In an effort to get to the core of the NFTA's financial problems, NYS Assemblyman Sean Ryan has announced that the New York State Authorities Budget Office (ABO) will begin their audit of the NFTA tomorrow. Ryan set the audit in motion last December when he asked ABO Director, David Kidera, to conduct a thorough review of the NFTA's finances and operations.
Ryan has noted that internal audits by the NFTA are insufficient to address their core problems, thus making the review by the ABO necessary. Earlier this year, the NFTA was faced with a deficit of nearly $15 million. In response, the NFTA announced plans to cut 22 percent of its service routes, which Ryan was successful in preventing. In an attempt to remedy their situation, the NFTA raised fares across the board and made over $7 million in internal cuts.
"I applaud the ABO for agreeing to my request to undertake a review of the NFTA, and I'm glad to see that this audit will begin next week," said Assemblyman Ryan. "The NFTA has historically always been searching for ways to achieve solvency because they are stretched too thin and are not focused on their core mission which is to provide public transportation. I am pleased that the NFTA's new leadership team has made it clear that public transportation is their top priority and I am hopeful that this audit, combined with the new leadership will help to resolve many of the NFTA's problems going forward. An audit by the ABO will help to uncover the real drivers of the NFTA's budget problems, and help them formulate a proper solution."
The operational review team will conduct their audit in Buffalo from July 16th through July 27th. The audit will be a comprehensive review of the NFTA airports, the small boat harbor, and the bus and rail services. The operational review team will collect as much information as possible during their time here and return to Albany. Once there, they will explore the data and see which questions they need to ask on a return trip, which will be conducted shortly thereafter.
"A financial crisis led to the NFTA's initial plan to eliminate dozens of service routes," Ryan added. "Thankfully that plan was eventually scrapped, but unfortunately the NFTA was still forced to raise fares. An audit by the ABO will help the NFTA get their fiscal house in order and return to profitability, so that in the future those who depend on the NFTA for transportation will not be faced with massive route cuts or fare increases."
Entry Image: Courtesy of Cityrails.net
I'm sure there is a lot of money being misspent at the NFTA. But the root cause of the NFTA's financial troubles is the same basic cause as that of just about every public transit system in North America since the '60s: residential and job sprawl. Our troubles here are really not unique.
Transit systems all over the US and Canada were profitable up until the '60s, when suburbanization spread the population out in geographies that were designed for the private automobile, not for transit. Even cities with reasonably healthy central cities, like Toronto, saw their transit systems get into dire financial trouble as they attempted to extend service into the new suburbs. Decades of fare hikes and service cuts followed as transit systems attempted to service a landscape that was built in a way that makes cost-effective transit service unfeasible.
Job sprawl is in many ways worse in this respect than residential sprawl. The big problem is that the region insists that the NFTA transport the working poor from the inner city to their minimum wage service jobs in Clarence (the people working at Dunkin Donuts in Clarence almost certainly don't live in Clarence). But there's no way to do this in a cost-effective way.
Transit is going to be money losing operation for a long time in the US - even in dense European and Asian regions, it loses money. I don't expect the NFTA to ever make money because that's not it's goal.
I do however, expect an agency that doesn't go through a fiscal crisis followed by a gutting in services every ten years. There are plenty of transit agencies in this country that are well managed, and can maintain or even expand services with just as limited budgets. NFTA is full of graft, pork, and patronage hires, and has terrible leadership on top of it. That's the root of the problem.
Ex - Why can't the NFTA manage to find any real private sector advertising, outside of FUCILLO HUGEEE and Blue Wireless? Instead there's a bunch of ads (likely placed for free) for welfare services and the like. Cleveland's RTA manages to get private sector ads on routes going through the worst neighborhoods, why can't we?
Many public transit agencies don't have advertising on the outside of their buses. It makes the fleet look much more attractive, and increases the appeal of public transit for those who might not otherwise ride it.
I'm not just talking about the wraps, I'm talking about the inside of the buses and trains and the back and side panels. 95% of the time it's some ad for Medicaid, SNAP, Head Start or some other welfare program. I can almost guarantee this brings no money into the NFTA.
If we're going to have advertising, and let's face it, the NFTA is in no position not to take ad revenue, why not get some that brings money in? From everyone I've heard they do an awful job marketing it and managing anyone who does take out ads - can't guarantee what route it'll be on, awful rates, uncooperative staff. Why does it have to be this way when they're supposedly so strapped for cash?
Yeah right. Pass up free money? Never happened.
> Job sprawl is in many ways worse in this respect than residential sprawl.
This. The many scattered small industrial parks in Buffalo's suburbs (Amherst, I'm looking at you) make route planning beyond the city limits a challenge, and are one reason for the many serpentine bus line branch routes. Areas with concentrated suburban employment centers -- larger office parks and edge city-type areas -- tend to have more logical and heavily patronized suburban bus routes.
Then again, metro Rochester has arguably as much or even more of that "job sprawl" as does metro Buffalo - and yet...
http://www.rbj.net/article.asp?aID=191826
"Two officials to retire from RGRTA
By THOMAS ADAMS Rochester Business Journal
July 10, 2012
The Rochester-Genesee Regional Transit Authority’s top lawyer, Hal Carter, and its chief financial officer, Robert Frye, will resign this year, officials announced Tuesday.
Carter, who joined the RGRTA in 2006 and is its general counsel and chief administrative officer, is to retire Sept. 30.
… “The challenge with public service is to do it well, given limited resources,” he said in the statement. “We’ve improved our services even though the (Regional Transit Service subsidiary) adult fare is $1. That’s pretty amazing.”
The NFTA's fare is now double at $2 (and they have to follow the same NY state labor laws, Christy)... and in return for that our system here has double the goodness in … what ways? Anybody know?
Well, for starters, the RGRTA doesn't manage two airports and a marina, so it may not be an apples-to-apples comparison.
The Rochester bus system is widely disparaged as being terribly designed (it is much more hub-and-spoke based than Buffalo, and you basically have to go downtown to go anywhere else, there being virtually no crosstown buses). And Rochester is about to blow $50 million on an unnecessary downtown bus terminal that does not even connect with Amtrak or intercity buses (a second intermodal transit station is being built about four blocks over for that purpose, for another $25 million).
So I'm not sure we should be holding up the RGRTA as a shining example of an effective public transportation agency.
js, ok thanks for trying to answer the open q I asked...
but if those mostly ad hominem off-topics are the best anyone can do, it makes me all the more suppose there just might be ways Roch's system is operated more smartly than what happens here.
C'mon, what's any reason to even hint NFTA airports or marina have bad impacts on public transit fares? Don't those sound like red herring talking points the NFTA uses as distractions? Airports charge ticket fees to passengers and terminal use fees to airline co's, plus there's revenue from parking, food vendors, etc. Hopefully the marina's costs are fully funded by users - fees from boaters, rent from Dug's Dive, etc.
I'd be surprised if it'd even be legal for the NFTA to use $ from transit fares or any govt subsidies intended for transit as a way to help pay for airports or marina. However, if it's really any big part of the reason - if airports or marina cause transit fares to be higher than they'd otherwise be - then this audit should inform the public so it can be corrected. And if the audit doesn't say that, then the NFTA should stop implying otherwise.
As for this...
js>"Rochester is about to blow $50 million on an unnecessary downtown bus terminal that does not even connect with Amtrak or intercity buses (a second intermodal transit station is being built about four blocks over for that purpose, for another $25 million)"
Important on its own perhaps - but geez, if you're really implying it's relevant to local transit fares - then talk about apples-to-apples. If a dumb location is chosen for a Greyhound intercity station in Roch, unfortunate, but how could it explain why NFTA here has local transit fares twice as high?
The mention of local bus route differences is the only thing in that comment which potentially sounds relevant. However, the NFTA's routes of course have also been complained about here quite a bit. If anyone can say how Roch's routes and the NFTA's routes are so different for operating costs that the NFTA really needs double the fare in such a similar metro area in the same state… that could be interesting. But I haven't seen where anyone is saying that.
The Rochester transit system authority has a tremendous number of public and private partnerships worked out which help greatly subsidize it's operations, thus keeping their finances healthy and allowing them to have much lower fares than than NFTA. For example, it provides all bus service for City of Rochester students grades 7 and higher. The district pays the RTA $10 million per year for the service, as opposed to paying a similar amount to a private company such as First Student/Laidlaw (and it's worth noting that the cost per student per ride is twice what the actual fare is - $2.22 vs $1.00 - but the district still argues it saves money over going with a private company). RTS also receives subsidies from area colleges, apartment complexes and the like, all of whom pay to ensure bus service continues in less profitable areas. RIT pays them $1 million a year just for special weekend service to the campus, apartment complexes might pay $1200 or so a year to keep bus service active near their property. This helps RTS keep its fares low and its ridership growing even as it deals with increased expenses elsewhere.
brad, yes that's the type of stuff I was thinking should be looked at.
It could be interesting to know approximately what portion of the NFTA having a 100% higher fare is explained by those things you mention are done differently in Rochester.
While there's many variables so it can't be pinpointed exactly, it should be possible for auditors - or even journalists if any had interest - to look closely at the numbers and give the public some idea of how much is likely explainable by those things (which the NFTA perhaps should learn from and make a big effort to emulate) compared to how much of the difference is due to extra spending for the light rail (which the NFTA has no option to eliminate - it is what it is), or other issues such as management, route design, or who knows what else.