The grand bargain is impossible, not due to NIMBYs and zoning conflict but rather because more funding for the MTA won't help a damn thing.
The MTA has repeatedly been caught lying to the public about their finances, hiring ghost employees, etc etc. They have the highest capital costs in the world, full stop -- it would cost them a billion dollars to erect a mailbox.
The MTA's annual _capital_ expenditures budget is already larger than any transit system in America. Their operating budgets are among the healthiest in the world, due to very high farebox recovery ratios on the buses and subways, but the fares go up without bound and there is somehow never enough money to get existing service back to 2010 levels, to say nothing of modernization or expansion.
There's no money for new transit in New York City because no one in City Hall _or_ Albany is damn fool enough to believe that tossing additional billions into that bottomless pit will yield meaningful results.
Lastly, property taxes are pretty low in NYC. Property tax is less than 30% of total City revenues. Massively expanding property tax bases in localized areas will not move the needle on the city's budget.
The MTA has repeatedly been caught lying to the public about their finances, hiring ghost employees, etc etc. They have the highest capital costs in the world, full stop -- it would cost them a billion dollars to erect a mailbox.
The MTA's annual _capital_ expenditures budget is already larger than any transit system in America. Their operating budgets are among the healthiest in the world, due to very high farebox recovery ratios on the buses and subways, but the fares go up without bound and there is somehow never enough money to get existing service back to 2010 levels, to say nothing of modernization or expansion.
There's no money for new transit in New York City because no one in City Hall _or_ Albany is damn fool enough to believe that tossing additional billions into that bottomless pit will yield meaningful results.
Lastly, property taxes are pretty low in NYC. Property tax is less than 30% of total City revenues. Massively expanding property tax bases in localized areas will not move the needle on the city's budget.