MTA must find added ways to lower costs

In response to "Senators' bluster doesn't pass muster" [Editorial, May 9], the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's chairman, Jay Walder, took the reins with a mandate to lead the MTA out of bottomless debt and make the system accountable to the rider and the taxpayer. Chairman Walder needs a long-term plan. No matter how much money is thrown at the MTA through bailouts, payroll taxes and fare increases, it is never enough.

According to the MTA's own projections, it will have built a deficit of more than $482 million by 2014. Even more staggering, it projects this hole while including new revenue from planned 2013 fare and toll increases.

I will not accept that we all know the MTA is failing, but nothing can be done about it. Everyone acknowledges the problem, but no one wants the responsibility to fix it. Maybe in its current form the MTA is beyond repair. Maybe it is time for a major structural reform. Maybe it is time to start over. Without hearings and tough questions, we'll never know.

Walder deserves credit for making cuts, but to date, these cuts have not done enough to bring the revenue side and the expense side in line. He must think outside of the box and lead.

I held this hearing to find solutions. Now we take what we learned and apply it to crafting legislation to roll back the payroll tax and reform the MTA. I find it unconscionable that Walder believes that questions about how to fund the MTA are the legislature's problem. We want and need him to be our partner in this process.

Sen. Carl L. Marcellino, Syosset

Editor's note: The writer is chairman of the State Senate's Committee on Investigations and Government Operations.