MTA - Is This a Bailout?

The MTA will be required to pay level debt service in any of its new bonds that it issues, and we've put an exception there for expansion projects. We are not just funding new initiatives that will transform the experience of New Yorkers when using their transit system. The MTA is accounting for retaining 80% of pre-pandemic ridership. They're using the midpoint of a study that McKinsey was commissioned to do around what ridership recovery would look like. It behooves us if we try to be fiscally prudent to actually plan for the worst case scenario so we don't have to come back next year or the year after with more money.