Hello and thank you for the opportunity to testify today. My name is Brian Fritsch and I am the Manager of Advocacy Campaigns for Regional Plan Association.

First and most importantly, RPA strongly supports a federal COVID relief package that includes full funding for transit to allow the MTA to run vital service during the pandemic, and support essential workers.

But given the ongoing lack of action in Washington, we understand the incredible uncertainty facing the MTA. If the MTA decides it has no other choice, we support borrowing from the Municipal Liquidity Facility as needed. We encourage Congress to extend the MLF borrowing deadline until the end of 2022 to give the MTA more flexibility on borrowing additional funds.

Our regional economy relies heavily on public transit, and we cannot move forward with a just recovery without a reliable bus, subway and train service. Implementing service cuts and fare increases would be a disaster for our region, and cripple collective efforts to bring our region back from this pandemic.

To that end, additional transparency, whenever possible, should be released to give the public confidence that the MTA has considered all their options to save operating funds, including providing additional information about the financial and cleaning benefits of overnight closures.

Finally, we encourage Governor Cuomo to take the lead on MTA’s financial problems to protect the public from an incredibly dire set of outcomes. That includes announcing the members of the Traffic Mobility Review Board to advance the implementation of congestion pricing – once it receives the go ahead from the federal government – and protecting the state’s $600 million in dedicated funding.

Thank you so much for your time and consideration today.