Everything about The New York City Transit Authority totally explained
The
New York City Transit Authority (NYCTA) is a
public authority in the
U.S. state of
New York that operates
public transportation in
New York City. Part of the
Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the busiest and largest transit system in
North America, the NYCTA has a daily
ridership of 7 million trips (over 2 billion annually).
The NYCTA operates the following systems:
Overview
Name
As part of establishing a common corporate identity, the
Metropolitan Transportation Authority in 1994 assigned popular names to each of its subsidiaries and affiliates. The New York City Transit Authority is now known popularly as
MTA New York City Transit (NYCT), though the former remains its legal name for documents and contracts.
The Authority is also sometimes referred to as
NYCT (for
New York City Transit), or simply the
TA (for
Transit Authority).
Management structure
The Chairman and Members of the MTA, by statute, also serve as the Chairman and Members of the Transit Authority, and serve as the Directors of the
Manhattan and Bronx Surface Transit Operating Authority. The Executive Director of the MTA is, ex officio, Executive Director of the Transit Authority.
The Transit Authority has its own management structure which is responsible for its day-to-day operations, with executive personnel reporting to the President of NYCTA. The current NYCTA president is Howard Roberts, appointed on April 10, 2007.
History
The subway system was originally three separate systems that were in competition with one another. Two of them were built and operated by private companies, the Interborough Rapid Transit Company of August Belmont (IRT) and the Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit Corporation (BMT). The public Independent City-Owned Rapid Transit Railroad (IND) was built by the City of New York and opened in sections beginning in 1932. The IRT and BMT systems were acquired by the city in 1940 after they went bankrupt. All of the subways are now owned by New York City and leased to the Transit Authority for operation.
The Transit Authority, a
public benefit corporation, was created in
1953 pursuant to Title 9 of Article 5 of the Public Authorities Law, as amended (the "TA Act"), for the purposes of acquiring the transit facilities then operated by the City and operating them "for the convenience and safety of the public." These facilities included the surface lines (buses and, until
1956,
streetcars) and the
IRT,
BMT, and
IND subways; before that date these services were managed by New York City's Board of Transportation. A major impetus of the formation of the NYCTA was to remove transit policy, and especially the setting of the transit fare, from City politics.
New York City's subway system is unique in the United States in that its very high ridership has enabled it to almost always pay its operating costs from fares (city bus operations can't recover their operating costs from the farebox, which leads to the Transit Authority's inevitable overall operating loss), but as with all
public transportation in the U.S., requires assistance for its capital needs. Historically, the TA's capital requirements were met by the city and state jointly, but this support was withdrawn, primarily by Governor Rockefeller, in the 1960s. He eventually forced the city to turn over effective control of the TA to the state and put his long time assistant, William Ronan, in charge by the creation of the MTA. This was much the same technique that he used to impose tuition on the free city colleges - initially, the City College, now City University of New York (CUNY).
In
1968 the NYCTA, and its subsidiary, the
Manhattan and Bronx Surface Transit Operating Authority (MaBSTOA), were placed under the control of, and are now affiliates of the
Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), a public benefit corporation chartered by the New York State Legislature in
1965.
Strikes
On
New Year's Day, in
1966, a 12-day strike was started with the aid of
Michael J. "Mike" Quill. This strike started after the union member's contracts had expired, and with large economic demands from the union. After the
1966 New York City transit strike, the
Taylor Law was passed making public employee strikes illegal in the state of New York.
Despite the Taylor Law, there was still an 11-day
strike in 1980. 34,000 union members struck in order to call for increased wages.
On
December 20, 2005,
another strike occurred. Workers walked off at 3 a.m. and the NYCTA stopped operating. Later that day, State Justice Theodore Jones fined and warned the transit union that there would be a fine of $1 million for each day the TA is shut down. Also for each day the workers missed during the strike they'd be fined two days pay. The workers are members of the
Transport Workers Union of America Local 100.
At 2:35 p.m. on December 22, TWU Local 100 had told members to report to work immediately
(External Link
), even though no contract agreement had been reached. By late afternoon, the strike was over and bus service resumed in the evening and subway service in the morning of the December 23. The MTA Board of Directors, sitting as the Transit Authority board, repudiated the contract that they'd agreed to. The original contract was ultimately imposed on the Transit Authority by a state mediator.
Further Information
Get more info on 'New York City Transit Authority'.
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