The MTA Board cannot back away from Congestion Pricing now. It would violate the 2009 Public Authorities Reform Act that explicitly stated the MTA board is an independent body and should be making all decisions with the MTA's fiscal responsibility its primary concern.
Aaron W. Gordon
46 posts
Data reporter at Bloomberg News. I don't check this account.
Joined February 2011
- Replying to @A_W_GordonBefore he died, the author of that law, Richard Brodsky, told me he wrote that bit into the law "in order to make it absolutely clear as a matter of law that the transportation policies of the MTA are to be set by the board, not by elected officials."
- Replying to @A_W_GordonThere could not possibly be a clearer violation of 2009 PARA than the MTA board voting to deny itself $1 billion in annual revenue in exchange for promises of revenue to be named later. Just crystal clear. Fiduciary suicide for politics. Exactly what the MTA was created to avoid.
- Replying to @A_W_GordonThis is the ultimate test for the integrity of the MTA Board. They would all, in the most obvious fashion, be violating their sworn duties as fiduciaries of the MTA by delaying congestion pricing. They would be violating the law. No one is making them do this. It is up to them.
- Hey, today was my first day at Bloomberg! I'll be a data reporter doing cool data stories on the data desk. Exciting!
- Replying to @A_W_GordonAgain, in 2018, Brodsky told me, "Until there is a board of the MTA that asserts its primary obligation to make the decisions about transit, the system will continue to malfunction."
- Replying to @A_W_GordonIn 2014, former MTA head Richard Ravitch testified at an MTA board meeting about this exact dynamic and how it is resulting in the long-term harm to the agency he so ably saved in the 1980s. youtube.com/watch?v=beNiR-…
- I have never been more tempted to send out an emergency Signal Problems than I am right now.
- Ted Mann consistently provided some of the best transit and infrastructure reporting in the country for the WSJ. He was single-handedly a major reason I paid for a subscription.NEW: Major layoffs at the Wall Street Journal’s D.C. bureau yesterday left the newsroom reeling. “This is like dropping a neutron bomb on the newsroom,” said one of the reporters affected. I got the names of most of the journalists who were laid off: politico.com/newsletters/pl…
- Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't the cycle here that Boeing fucks up, Airline CEOs get angry, Boeing offers steeper discounts to get new orders, Boeing cuts costs further to make up for it, Boeing fucks up, airline CEOs get angry....
- My first story for Bloomberg is, characteristically, about a bad commute. A *very* bad commute.
- I'm going to be helping Proof News out with investigations on climate and the tech industry in the coming months which is very exciting! Julia is one of the best people in news and her vision for Proof, which you can read more about here, is spot on:I’m delighted to announce that today I’m launching a new nonprofit journalism studio: Proof News. Proof is into proving things! We question, test, and investigate the most important issues. We will always tell you what we know and what we don’t know. proofnews.org
- There has been a lot of coverage of fare evasion in NYC recently. I will note the MTA made major changes to how it measures fare evasion a few years ago. This methodological change is super important but I haven't seen it mentioned in any coverage. mtaig.ny.gov/Reports/20-17.…
- Here it isI have never been more tempted to send out an emergency Signal Problems than I am right now.signalproblems.substack.comPlain, Simple Common SenseIn October 2018, Richard Ravitch invited me to his office for a chat.





