CrainsNewYork.com

MTA bond buyers are like New York commuters waiting for a train

The plan would raise money from electronic tolling in streets south of 61st Street, a step studies have shown could raise about $1 billion a year that could be leveraged into $15 billion in municipal bond sales. Money from a new Internet sales tax in the city and a tax on the yet-to-be-legalized marijuana would also help infuse cash into the system.

The additional money would come after annual debt service bills have consumed a growing share of the agency’s revenues since 2015, according to Moody’s Investors Service figures.

It "gives some relief to the credit," said Matt Fabian, a partner at Municipal Market Analytics. "At the same time, it’s not going to change the direction. This is probably going to be a slow and redundant process to allocate new revenue from the state and the city to the MTA."

MTA leadership has said it needs $40 billion over the next decade to get the system up to 21st century standards. And the MTA faces declining ridership, threats from ride-sharing applications, and inefficiencies with how it spends money on capital projects, said Evercore’s Cure, who rides the 6 train to work each morning.

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