Testimony: Oversight Hearings on The New York City Ferry System
David R. Jones
Testimony by David R. Jones, Esq., President and CEO, Community Service Society of New York
Before the NY City Council Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure and Committee on Economic Development
Thank you for providing the opportunity to testify today on the issue of New York City’s ferry system. I am David Jones, President and CEO of Community Service Society of New York (CSS), an organization that has worked with and for New Yorkers since 1843 to promote economic opportunity and champion an equitable city and state. My testimony today will focus on how the ferry system can be improved to foster transit equity and make New York a better-connected city.
Transit hardship continues to challenge low-income workers. In the latest round of our survey—The Unheard Third—we find that 34 percent of low-income New Yorkers (those with incomes below 200 percent of the federal poverty level) were ‘often unable to afford subway or bus fares.’ Among the New Yorkers in poverty, the rate of transit hardship was higher, with 36 percent expressing their inability to pay for transit fares. Even among moderate to high-income New Yorkers, an estimated 11 percent reported experiencing transit hardship. Among low-income New Yorkers, rates of transit hardship were highest for Hispanic people: 41 percent reported struggling to afford transit fares.
This struggle to afford transit, besides taking a daily toll, where a mother like Maria had to choose between paying for a ride and putting food on the table, shows up as a real cost in people’s lives. From having to forego job opportunities located further away from their homes to missing medical appointments, the costs to the individual and to the society go way beyond the charge at the turnstile.
These experiences had motivated CSS to campaign for reduced-fare Metrocards for New Yorkers in poverty, the program we now know as Fair Fares. Launched in 2018 and opened fully to all deemed eligible in 2020, the program has proven to be a life-saver for thousands of New Yorkers. With 270,00 enrollees, the program is currently reaching only a third of the eligible population, and we at CSS have been working relentlessly with the City administration, the MTA, community boards as well as other transit justice coalitions to increase awareness about it.
In a positive development over the summer, the city decided to extend discounted ferry tickets to Fair Fare enrollees. However, it still leaves out many vulnerable folks, including students. Intro 236 seeks to make it easier for students enrolled in a city high school to use the ferry system by offering them the discounted fare.
CSS strongly supports this bill since it is likely to help students in low-income families. These students are often working multiple jobs, while attending schools across town, and making the ferry system affordable to them could be one way to support them. They also likely come from families who are financially struggling to make ends meet. Students might avail the ferry system to explore inter-borough training and apprenticeship opportunities, or even to interact with their peers. Recent research by Harvard economist Raj Chetty and his co-authors shows that friendships between children across income classes have profound consequences for lifting people out of poverty and fostering upward mobility.[1] In other words, easing transit affordability for students has both the immediate benefit of freeing up resources (which can then be spent on school supplies or tuition or put in college savings) as well as a longer term effect of increasing their incomes by providing them access to better, higher quality social capital.
Over the summer the City’s ferry system has been the subject of much critique as the Comptroller’s office had released an audit that unearthed layers of problems in management, procurement and operations. Most glaring, perhaps, is the finding that the City’s Economic Development Corporation (EDC), the agency responsible for administering the ferry system, failed to disclose over $224 million in expenditures and understated the extent to which the City was subsidizing ferry rides. The report also identifies unnecessary expenditures worth $66 million.
These $300 million in wasted and undisclosed funds could have been used to support public transit for low-income New Yorkers. We have advocated specifically for expanding the eligibility for the Fair Fares program from 100 percent of the federal poverty line to 200 percent of it. CSS estimates that such an expansion would cost between $210-$260 million. This 300 million in funds could have also been used to subsidize the fares of students.
Making transit affordable for all low-income New Yorkers is an investment likely to pay for itself many times over by allowing residents greater connectivity to training, job fairs, networking events, and job opportunities. It is time we demand that our tax dollars fund programs that are proven to benefit the most vulnerable amongst us.
Thank you.
Notes
1. Chetty, R., Jackson, M.O., Kuchler, T. et al. Social capital I: measurement and associations with economic mobility. Nature 608, 108–121 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-04996-4 and Chetty, R., Jackson, M.O., Kuchler, T. et al. Social capital II: determinants of economic connectedness. Nature 608, 122–134 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-04997-3