The Seven MTA Strategic Priorities
1. Workforce Development - The MTA and its agencies must create organizational cultures that value, engage, and support employees as they work to provide quality service in a rapidly expanding region. Engaging and developing the workforce in an environment that fosters professional career growth and encourages values of mutual respect, teamwork, professionalism and customer-directed service is critical to achieving the agency's vision.
2. Institutional Transformation - The MTA must break down institutional boundaries to transform itself into a leaner, flatter and better integrated organization, create seamless regional transportation services and improve its relations with outside stakeholders and government partners. Among other initiatives related to this priority, the MTA is consolidating six agency back offices into one new Business Service Center, operating its three bus fleets as one under the Regional Bus initiative, restructuring subway management to reduce bureaucracy and create accountability, and pursuing uniformity between its two commuter railroads.
3. Customer Service - The MTA must continually identify and implement customer service improvements, particularly by engaging with customers in new ways and improving the information provided to customers. Some recent innovations to customer information include near real-time text and e-mail message alerts, the provision of cell phone service underground and electronic signs at railroad stations. Customer engagement improvements include the creation of subway and bus rider report cards, regular online webinars, and meet-the-manager events.
4. Projects & Planning - The MTA must plan strategically to handle the projected growth in residents and workers over the next 25 to 30 years and beyond. It must also evaluate and improve management of large construction projects. Toward these goals, the MTA has created a 40-year vision for regional transportation growth, articulated at the 40th Anniversary State of the MTA Address in March 2008, and adopted recommendations of its Blue-Ribbon Panel on Construction Excellence, which identified ways that construction costs can be reduced and contractor competition for MTA projects increased.
5. Financial Stability - The MTA has an obligation to maintain and improve service for a growing ridership, even during times of financial austerity. Therefore, the MTA, working with its Federal, State and local government funding partners, must secure stable and predictable revenue sources. The MTA is a strong and vocal supporter of the Ravitch Commission recommendations which call for increased revenue for mass transit through a regional payroll tax and East River bridge tolls. In absence of State approval of these or similar proposals, the MTA must protect its $1 trillion network of infrastructure from decay through revenue increases and service reductions.
6. Safety & Security - Ensuring the safety of MTA customers is in many ways the most important thing that the authority does. In light of the post-9/11 environment, the MTA continues to develop an aggressive set of strategies to address potential threats to the network through a three-pronged approach that includes infrastructure hardening, customer awareness of potential threats, and increased patrolling. The MTA has committed $1 billion in capital spending for security, additional police and employee training, and has dramatically enhanced federal, state, and local police presence on regional railroads under the Directed Patrol Strategy. The MTA must also work with the New York City Police Department to sustain the phenomenal reduction in crime in the subway system that has occurred over the past 20 years.
7. Sustainability - Climate change is probably the foremost challenge facing the planet, and the MTA must take a leadership role in identifying and implementing strategies to reduce humanity's impact on the planet. The MTA created a Blue-Ribbon Commission on the MTA and Sustainability in order to analyze the MTA's ecological footprint, including CO2 emissions, water, waste, and resource use. The Commission recommended ways the MTA can reduce energy consumption and "green" its operations while at the same time reducing the region's overall ecological footprint through such actions as encouraging mass transit ridership and fostering transit-oriented development.