Mayor Bill de Blasio launched a fusillade of criticism against the MTA on Thursday — telling the state-run agency that it “should clean up its own house” before asking the city for more Access-A-Ride funding.
“We’ve got to have a blunt chat here about the MTA,” de Blasio said after a reporter asked the mayor about MTA Chairman Pat Foye recently demanding more cash for the paratransit Access-A-Ride service.
“The MTA does not have its own house in order. The MTA needs to fix its own problems before it asks for more money,” de Blasio said at an unrelated press conference Thursday.
He cited a forensic audit the agency is supposed to do on its spending and asserted that the MTA hasn’t used $2.5 billion in capital funds the city provided.
“Something like Access-A-Ride, it’s been a disaster, it’s arcane, it’s very poorly managed by the MTA,” de Blasio said about the supplemental service used by people with disabilities and health problems.
The cost of paratransit has exploded in the 25 years since the MTA took over the program from the city, which in turn agreed to cover 33% of the operating cost.
On Monday, the MTA informed the city that it wanted it to cover 50% of the bill — increasing the city’s contribution by $362 million through 2023.
Not all of the agency’s leaders are keen on the idea.
At Thursday’s meeting, mayoral board appointee Veronica Vanterpool argued that because the MTA is a transit agency, federal law specifically obligates it to offer paratransit services.
“We are a transit system,” she said. “As a transit system, it’s our responsibility to provide this.”
But Foye told reporters the law is beside the point.
“The 1993 agreement is meaningful because it represents a situation in which the city, which wasn’t legally required … to contribute a third, did so,” he said.
In a statement, MTA spokesman Shams Tarek called the mayor’s position “disappointing.”
“Local governments across the state and country pay the full cost of paratransit services and we‘re simply calling for equitable cost sharing of these critical programs,” Tarek said.