The man who got the MTA on track

Daily Point

Ideas ahead of his time

When Richard Ravitch led the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in the late 1970s and early 1980s, it was yet another rough time in the agency’s history. Ravitch was willing to think differently, to try something new.

And what was new 40 years ago continues to reverberate now.

One of Ravitch’s boldest moves was to create the MTA’s first capital plan, which allowed the agency to take on debt to pay for repairs and capital projects, from upgrading stations to buying new train cars.

Forty years later, the MTA is still relying on those capital plans, now orchestrated in five-year increments, to get large projects done. It’s how the Long Island Rail Road finally got its double track, and its third track, and its path to Grand Central Madison known as East Side Access.

Ravitch, who died Sunday at the age of 89, was one of the key players in the region for decades, even while never holding elective office. (He ran for the New York City mayoralty once, finishing third in the 1989 Democratic primary won by David Dinkins.) Instead, he was the guy the elected officials relied upon to get things done. In 1975, his efforts were crucial to bringing the city back from financial ruin, and he stabilized Gov. David A. Paterson’s administration by taking on the lieutenant governor slot in 2009.

But it was at the MTA that Ravitch really left his mark.

Decades after his initial stint, Ravitch found himself once again trying to manage the MTA through a financial crisis. In 2008, Ravitch came up with a plan that relied on a payroll mobility tax. While reviled by Long Islanders, the Ravitch proposal was critical to shoring up the MTA’s finances in 2008.

“It’s not many transit giants who get to save the system twice,” said former Long Island Rail Road president Helena Williams, who worked with Ravitch during her time on the LIRR and when she served as the MTA’s executive director in 2009. “The very fact that we’re still looking at concepts and ideas that he proposed a number of years ago tells you what a genius he was in terms of understanding transportation infrastructure.”

Gov. Kathy Hochul took a page from Ravitch’s playbook earlier this year, when she advocated raising some form of the payroll tax to once again give the MTA financial stability. One of Ravitch’s big ideas is still waiting to catch on. Hoping at the time to raise additional funds, Ravitch had proposed tolling the East River bridges, a plan which never went forward back in 2008. But the idea has since morphed into the notion of congestion pricing — charging a fee to enter Manhattan’s central business district.

That, too, is an idea reviled by some. But it’s now poised to get a final go-ahead from federal regulators as soon as this week.

Said Williams: “We’re still catching up to Dick Ravitch’s ideas.”

— Randi F. Marshall randi.marshall@newsday.com

Pencil Point

Putin him in his place

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