Here I am, one of thos rich bond holders. Well, I think I still have some of
those MTA bonds which these days, pay about 3% interest. Perhaps the headline
should have been, MTA continues to mismanage public transportation while paying
bosses high salaries, because I suspect that most bond holders are lower middle
class old folks like me, trying to supplement social security with enough
income to survive.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Roger Loran Bailey ;
(Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Monday, July 10, 2017 10:25 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Bondholders line pockets as mass transit crumbles
http://themilitant.com/2017/8126/812602.html
The Militant (logo)
Vol. 81/No. 26 July 17, 2017
(front page)
Bondholders line pockets as mass transit crumbles
BY JIM BRADLEY
NEW YORK — The growing frustration and anger of working people with the
dramatic increase in delays, breakdowns and daily abuse in the subway system
here shifted to concern for passenger safety with the derailment of two cars on
the A train during morning rush hour June 27 that injured
34 people, sending 17 to hospital.
Deteriorating conditions — coupled with increasing fares — in one of the
largest subway systems in the world, has reached crisis proportions, reflecting
the disregard of the bosses and their politicians for the lives of working
people.
“I’m not going to use the MTA again,” 31-year-old Harlem resident Sheena
Tucker, a homemaker with two children who suffered a back injury in the
derailment, said at a June 29 press conference.
“This was a serious derailment, with quite a bit of damage to signals and some
structural damage to the walls,” said Tony Utano, vice president of Local 100
of the Transport Workers Union. “Our members worked as fast and safely as
possible to bring the system back to normal.”
The problem for working people is that the daily “normal” in the subway and
commuter transit system, managed by highly paid Metropolitan Transportation
Authority officials and their Democratic and Republican political masters in
the state and city governments, is the crisis conditions.
The MTA, a state-run agency that operates the city subways and buses, the Long
Island and Metro-North railroads and area bridges and tunnels, carries
one-third of all mass transit users in the country. The 112-year-old system has
been deteriorating for decades. Worsening service and safety problems are
accompanied by countless other indignities — lack of adequate seating on
station platforms, no escalators at most stations, oppressive heat and lack of
air, and near constant unannounced changes in routes and schedules.
As the transit bosses try to keep up with aging cars, signals and tracks,
capitalist politicians in Washington, Albany and New York have cut funding. The
burden — directly and indirectly — falls more and more squarely on working
people.
The system’s capital budget is hermetically sealed from its operating budget,
which covers the wages, health care and pensions for 67,000 workers and,
increasingly, the cost of the soaring bond debt to Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan
Chase and other banks and profiteers. This accounting scheme lets the bosses
claim that the debt can only be paid for by cuts to workers’ jobs and wages,
and fare increases.
The alternatives they propose all hike costs for workers — from a “congestion
fee” on drivers who come to Manhattan and tolls on East River bridges to
increased taxes on gas.
The MTA bond debt load is now greater than that of 30 countries — a whopping
$35.7 billion. Interest payments to the bondholders eat up 16 percent of the
operating budget, and the percentage is growing.
Meanwhile, the system degrades daily.
“What is needed today, immediately, is more financial resources for regular,
ongoing maintenance to ensure that the system can handle today’s record
ridership,” Local 100 President John Samuelsen said.
In 1990 ridership was 4 million a day, today it’s 6 million. But in that period
the fleet of subway cars has only increased by 27. Total track mileage has been
reduced by five miles. On-time performance for almost all 24 lines has fallen
dramatically. Today there are more than 70,000 delays a month, up from 28,000
in 2012.
The horse-and-buggy signal system that keeps the trains running was installed
in the 1930s. Ten years ago the signals were checked every month, management
has now cut signal checks to four times a year.
Over the past 25 years capitalist politicians have diverted billions of dollars
from maintenance of the system into unnecessary and costly pet megaprojects,
such as a $10.8 billion tunnel to connect Long Island Rail Road trains to the
Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan that will serve as few as 162,000 riders a
day. A much ballyhooed extension of the No. 7 line from Times Square a handful
of blocks to the west costs $2.4 billion and carries less than 25 percent of
the projected 32,000 daily riders.
State and city officials are battling to shift blame for the indignities and
dangers back and forth, and each claims the other should pay more.
Two days after the June 27 derailment, in response to the rising anger of
working people, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who is unofficially campaigning to be the
Democratic Party’s 2020 presidential candidate, suddenly declared the subways
face a state of emergency and need billions in new funding.
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio took a well publicized subway ride June 15, his
first in two months, saying if Cuomo’s MTA can’t fix the problem, “I’d rather
have the city of New York run it.”
In contrast to these capitalist politicians, Osborne Hart, Socialist Workers
Party candidate for New York mayor, explains that low cost, safe, efficient
public transit is a necessity for working people. Hart says workers need to
fight for a massive, nationwide government-funded public works program to
expand mass transit, rebuild aging infrastructure such as roads and bridges,
and bring the New York and other subway systems to safe and comfortable
operation — a program that would put millions of unemployed workers to work at
union rates of pay.
Related articles:
NY subway derailment shows crisis of capitalism Expand public transit, fight
for workers power!
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