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Annual Report Narrative 2018

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Annual Report Narrative 2018 Annual Report Narrative 2018 Submitted as part of the MTA 2018 Annual Report Pursuant to New York State Public Authorities Law Section 2800(1) Metropolitan Transportation Authority 2018 Annual Report to the Governor Pursuant to New York State Public Authorities Law §2800 MTA 2018 ANNUAL REPORT NARRATIVE Pursuant to New York Public Authorities Law Sections 2800 (1)(a)(1), (6), (11), (13), and (17) Section 1—Operations and Performance Performance 1 NYC Transit (Subways and Buses) Long Island Rail Road ▪ Metro-North Railroad ▪ MTA Bus Company ▪ Bridges and Tunnels Section 2—Accomplishments and Initiatives Customer Service Initiatives 17 Interagency ▪ NYC Transit (Subways) ▪ MTA Bus Operations (NYCT Department of Buses, MTA Bus Company) ▪ Long Island Rail Road ▪ Metro-North Railroad ▪ Bridges and Tunnels Operations/Technology Initiatives 26 Interagency ▪ NYC Transit (Subways) ▪ MTA Bus Operations (NYCT Department of Buses, MTA Bus Company) ▪ Long Island Rail Road ▪ Metro-North Railroad ▪ Bridges and Tunnels Sustainability/Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) Initiatives 35 Interagency ▪ NYC Transit (Subways) ▪ MTA Bus Operations (NYCT Department of Buses, MTA Bus Company) ▪ Long Island Rail Road ▪ Metro-North Railroad ▪ Bridges and Tunnels Safety/Security Initiatives 43 Interagency: MTA Police Department ▪ NYC Transit (Subways) ▪ MTA Bus Operations (NYCT Department of Buses, MTA Bus Company) ▪ Long Island Rail Road ▪ Metro-North Railroad ▪ Bridges and Tunnels Cost-Cutting/Revenue Initiatives 54 Interagency ▪ NYC Transit (Subways) ▪ MTA Bus Operations (NYCT Department of Buses, MTA Bus Company) ▪ Long Island Rail Road ▪ Metro-North Railroad ▪ Bridges and Tunnels Section 3—Capital Projects Commitments/Completions The MTA Capital Programs 61 Capital Program Progress 62 Funding Received Through December 31, 2018 ▪ Capital Program Progress, 1982-2018 ▪ Capital Program Progress, 2018 New York City Transit (Subways) 64 Major 2018 Commitments ▪ Major 2018 Completions MTA Bus Operations (NYCT Dept. of Buses, MTA Bus Company) 71 Major 2018 Commitments ▪ Major 2018 Completions Long Island Rail Road 73 Major 2018 Commitments ▪ Major 2018 Completions Metro-North Railroad 80 Major 2018 Commitments ▪ Major 2018 Completions MTA Bridges and Tunnels 84 Major 2018 Commitments ▪ Major 2018 Completions MTA Capital Construction 87 Fulton Center ▪ Second Avenue Subway ▪7 Line Extension ▪ East Side Access Section 4—Description of the MTA and the MTA Board Structure Description of the MTA and the MTA Board Structure 90 Numbers of Employees ▪ Basic Organizational Structure of MTA Operations ▪ Governance of the MTA ▪ Board Members and Committee Assignments ▪ Board Members’ Attendance Section 5—Material Pending Litigation Report Material Pending Litigation Report 97 General Note ▪ The MTA ▪ Transit System ▪ Commuter System ▪ MTA Bridges and Tunnels ▪ MTA Bus ▪ MTA Long Island Bus Accompanying 2017 Documents 96 The Following Reports and/or Documents Are Attached Financial Reports ▪ All- Agency and Board Codes of Ethics ▪ Asset and Service Report 2018 ▪ Compensation Schedule and Biographical Information Reports ▪Bond Rating Reports ▪ Consolidated Financial Statements ▪ Governance Principles and By-Laws ▪ Grant Report 2018 ▪ MTA Legislation ▪ Mission Statement and Measurement Report ▪ Management Assessment of the Effectiveness of Internal Controls ▪ Real and Personal Property Reports with Guidelines ▪ Board Self-Assessment Report 2018 ANNUAL REPORT—SECTION 1 Operations and Performance Performance This section of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) Annual Report to the Governor, pursuant to PAL §2800, summarizes ridership and other performance data for the 12-month period ending December 31, 2018. (See also the “2018 Mission Statement, Measurement, and Performance Indicator Report,” PAL §1269-f and §2824-a.) Total ridership on the subways, buses, and railroads of the MTA wa s 2.56 billion rides in 2018. This represents a 3.7-percent drop from the previous year and the third annual decline in a row. The decrease came mainly in transit. Subway volume fell to 1.68 billion rides in 2018, down 2.3 percent. Combined ridership on NYCT Bus and MTA Bus fell by 4.7 percent in 2018 to about 690.8 million. Meanwhile, LIRR hit a record high ridership of 89.8 million rides in 2018, while Metro-North fell slightly to 87.1 million rides, just 0.2 percent shy of its all-time record the year before. To place these data in historical context, total MTA volume has declined by about 5.8 percent from its peak of 2.72 billion rides in 2015—which was, in turn, the highest ridership since the 1940s. Preliminary estimates put the MTA’s total farebox revenue for 2018 at around $6.2 billion. In its first full year of cashless tolling, MTA Bridges and Tunnels hit a record high of 322.3 million paid crossings, generating $1.09 billion in funding support for transit. Tough Challenges and a Turnaround Over the course of 2018, the MTA wrestled with a number of well-publicized difficulties—in particular, the performance of its century-old subway infrastructure; a declining bus ridership; public uncertainty over the L Train plan; an unfunded 2020-2024 Capital Program; and rising MTA 2018 Annual Report to the Governor, PAL §2800 1 deficits in the MTA operating budgets. While these problems demand and await comprehensive action on the part of the MTA and its government partners, 2018 performance metrics show signs of a positive turnaround. By the end of 2018, the first full year of the Subway Action Plan (SAP), weekday on-time performance (OTP) was the highest in four years; delays were the lowest in four years. The agency reached its goal of reducing delays by 10,000 per month in the year’s final four months. Other performance indicators also captured notable gains, as indicated on pages 9 to 12 of this report. Significantly, these indicators employ new, expanded metrics introduced in 2017 and 2018 designed to better reflect the customer’s actual experience and priorities. These indicators are tracked on the Subway Performance Dashboard on the MTA website at www.mta.info. Work Moves Ahead Systemwide Throughout the MTA network, major capital projects advanced alongside new initiatives. The LIRR completed its Second Track project and broke ground on its Main Line Expansion—two major undertakings that, together with East Side Access (ESA), will completely reshape regional travel. Both LIRR and Metro-North completed their 2018 FRA requirements for implementation of Positive Train Control (PTC). Bridges and Tunnels not only hit record ridership in its first full year of cashless tolling, the agency also finished the enormous job of repairing damage to the Midtown Queens and Hugh L. Carey tunnels wrought by Superstorm Sandy. In August, NYCT launched its reconfigured Staten Island Express Bus Network and is currently redesigning the Bronx bus system—part of the first efforts in half a century to rethink the city’s entire bus network. NYCT and MTACC also moved forward with the preliminary stages of the Second Ave. Subway Phase II. Under the MTA Capital Plans, the MTA agencies committed a combined $6.282 billion for capital projects in 2018 and completed projects worth $4.845 billion against the year’s goals. Totaling all capital program efforts in 2018, including those with prior-year goals, agencies achieved $9.441 billion in commitments and $6.656 billion in completions for the year. Capital projects are overviewed in Section 3 of this report and reported in detail on the Capital Program MTA 2018 Annual Report to the Governor, PAL §2800 2 Dashboard at www.mta.info. As part of its 2015-2019 Capital Plan, the MTA continues the massive effort of restoring those assets damaged by Superstorm Sandy in 2012, including new resiliency features to secure the system against rising sea levels and future weather events. By the end of 2018, the MTA had committed $5.2 billion to such projects, about 69 percent of the total repair budget. The MTA plans to submit a 2020-2024 Capital Program to the MTA Board later in 2019. The MTA’s critical digital infrastructure saw major upgrades as well, including the release of MYmta, a new mobile-ready app that combines all-agency trip planning with the full content of the MTA public website. Currently in beta testing with customers, MYmta has already logged over 1.5 million downloads at the time of this report. Additionally, MTA IT completed a major migration of data to the new PeopleSoft system platform, which included the relocation of the MTA’s disaster recovery site to Albany, outside of the city’s infrastructure and flood zones. Meanwhile, teams across the agencies contributed to the last-stage development of OMNY, the MTA’s new “tap-and-go” fare payments system, which debuted in a pilot launch in March 2019 and will eventually replace the 27-year-old MetroCard. These and other 2018 efforts, as noted in the Agency Initiatives and Capital Program sections of this report, underlie the many thousands of 24/7 tasks required to maintain, upgrade, and operate the nation’s largest public transportation network. Funding and the Unfinished Task Faced with looming budget shortfalls and major operational challenges, the MTA implemented an all-agency hiring freeze in November 2018, along with additional cost-cutting measures. This follows a decade-long effort that has reduced the MTA’s annual operating expenses, on an on- going basis, by more than $2 billion. It was clear by year’s end this would not suffice. On February 27, 2019, MTA Acting Chair Fernando Ferrer announced in a press release additional measures to be undertaken immediately across all MTA agencies, including a mandated $500 million in recurring annual savings, a 10-percent across-the-board cut in contractor and vendor rates, a consolidation of back-office functions, and other organizational cutbacks. At the time of MTA 2018 Annual Report to the Governor, PAL §2800 3 this report, the MTA Board and senior management are in discussion with the authority’s government partners to consider organizational reforms and secure reliable funding sources for MTA operating and capital budgets.
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