Tag: Transportation

Rep. Josh Gottheimer ruffled feathers when he called for Congress to investigate the spending practices of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, operating New York’s mass transi Read More

The Empire Center for Public Policy has released a policy guide and briefing book focused on the most important issues confronting New York. Read More

ALBANY, NY — 2021 for 82,513 New York public authority employees working at 320 different agencies is newly posted on , the Empire Center’s transparency website. The site now contains 2021 payroll data for a total of 172,947 Read More

Gov. Cuomo’s coverup of nursing-home deaths revealed the stunning lengths to which he and his staff go to keep damning information from the public. But few New Yorkers may realize that such behavior is actually standard operating procedure througho Read More

Alfonso Castillo The financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is adding urgency to the agency’s efforts to curtail overtime numbers that critics say remain alarmingly high. The MTA said a Read More

The MTA's accountability and time management issues differ with each branch. At New York City Transit, there are questions about whether all employees work their full shifts. Because of the size of those operations, that's where more taxpayer and rider dollars are. At the LIRR, which is governed by the Federal Railway Labor Act, a lack of modern record keeping allows overtime abuses. A report by the Empire Center watchdog organization showed some stunning examples. Read More

Notably, the OT surge was highest at the Long Island Rail Road, up 30 percent last year and more than double the 2013 level, the Empire Center reports. And The Post has highlighted some hard-to-swallow extreme LIRR cases, with one guy working the equivalent of 16 hours a day for the whole year. Read More

The LIRR racked up $225 million in OT last year, according to the Empire Center — consuming nearly a third of the $740 million in fares Long Island commuters pay. Put another way, without this burden, the average commuter riding from Huntington to Penn Station every day could pay $253, not $363. Read More