MTA head touts transit as region's economic engine

Metropolitan Transportation Authority chairman Jay Walder pitched mass transit as the fuel for the region's economic engine Monday when he visited the Long Island Association, the Island's largest business organization.

Speaking to what could have been a hostile audience - many businesses resent the payroll tax that helped bail out the MTA - Walder instead got a respectful, if muted, welcome from several dozen people at the Molloy College Center at Republic Airport, in East Farmingdale.

LIA president Kevin Law, the former chief of the Long Island Power Authority, set a sympathetic tone. "If there's anyone who has a more thankless job than I did at LIPA, it's Jay Walder," Law told the group.

Walder, who has been on the job for about a year, said he's overseen "the most aggressive cost cutting in the history of the MTA," with $500 million worth of cuts, but he warned against the temptation to cut investments in mass transit. Building and rebuilding the system not only is a jobs program in its own right, but it also will keep the region from stalling economically, he said.

The MTA's capital program supports about 18,000 jobs a year at a time when there's little construction work to be had, he noted.

"Walk around New York City and think about what you no longer see: Cranes," he said.

Even without the jobs benefit, the work is vital to help the economy grow, Walder said. The Long Island Rail Road's massive East Side Access project, which will bring train service from Long Island to Grand Central Terminal, will transform the way the railroad works, he said.

"Without it, we will choke the region's growth," Walder said.

Also crucial is expanding service in Suffolk by extending double-track service farther east, he said.

"We have the right of way," LIRR president Helena Williams added. "It is all about the money" to do the work.

"We can't stop these big projects," Walder said. "It matters for the future of our region."

He said he was pleased to see last week that Gov.-elect Andrew Cuomo was quick to seek additional federal transportation money after governors in Virginia and Ohio said they'd turn it down.

Walder acknowledged the payroll tax is unpopular with business leaders, but he said it's the Legislature's role to decide how the MTA is funded. It's possible there is another way to get the $1.5 billion the tax provides, Walder said, "but I don't know what that is."