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Metropolitan Transportation Authority (New York)

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) is a public benefit corporation responsible for public transportation in the U.S. state of New York, serving 12 counties in southeastern New York, along with 2 counties in southwestern Connecticut under contract to the Connecticut Department of Transportation.

History

Chartered by the New York State Legislature in 1965 as the Metropolitan Commuter Transportation Authority (MCTA) it initially was responsible only for regulating and subsidizing commuter railroads, including the Long Island Rail Road and what is now the Metro-North Railroad. The MCTA changed its name to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) in 1968 when it took over operations of the New York City Transit Authority (NYCTA) and Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority (TBTA), now MTA New York City Transit (NYCT) and MTA Bridges and Tunnels (B&T) respectively. The current CEO of the MTA is Elliot "Lee" Sander, appointed upon the recommendation of former Governor Eliot Spitzer.

Responsibilities and service area

The MTA has the responsibility for developing and implementing a unified mass transportation policy for The New York metropolitan area, including all five boroughs of New York City, the suburban counties of Dutchess, Nassau, Orange, Putnam, Rockland, Suffolk and Westchester, all of which together are the "Metropolitan Commuter Transportation District (MCTD)".

The MTA is the largest public transportation provider in the Western Hemisphere. Its agencies serve 14.6 million people spread over 5,000 square miles (13,000 km²) from New York City through southeastern New York State (including Long Island and the lower Hudson Valley), and Connecticut. MTA agencies now move more than 2.6 billion rail and bus customers a year.

Related entities

MTA carries out these planning and other responsibilities both directly and through its subsidiaries and affiliates, and provides oversight to these subordinate agencies, known collectively as The Related Entities. The Related Entities represent a number of previously existing agencies which have come under the MTA umbrella. In turn, these previously existing agencies were (with the exception of MTA Bridges and Tunnels and MTA Capital Construction) successors to the property of private companies that provided substantially the same services.

Each of these Related Entities has a popular name and in some cases, a former, legal name. The popular names were part of an overall corporate identification effort in 1994 to eliminate the confusion over the affiliations of the various "authorities" that were part of the MTA. Legal names have since only been used for legal documents, such as contracts, and are not used publicly. Furthermore, the bus divisions of the MTA were merged into one division under three brands in May 2008, and the legal name is no longer valid, as the individual operating authorities formerly using these brands were dissolved.

Subsidiary agencies

Long Island Rail Road (LIRR)
(legal name - no longer used publicly: The Long Island Rail Road Company)

Metro-North Railroad (MNR)
(legal name - no longer used publicly: Metro-North Commuter Railroad Company)

Staten Island Railway (SIR)
(legal name - no longer used publicly: Staten Island Rapid Transit Operating Authority)

MTA Capital Construction (MTACC)
(legal name used)

Bus services formerly under three divisions merged in May 2008, now managed as three brands
(legal name not yet known):

*Long Island Bus (or LI Bus)
(former legal name - Metropolitan Suburban Bus Authority)

*MTA Bus Company (or MTA Bus)
(brand is the former legal name)

*MTA New York City Bus
(former legal name - New York City Transit Department of Buses)

**Select Bus Service
(the BRT brand for MTA New York City Bus)

Affiliate agencies

MTA Bridges and Tunnels (MTA B&T)
(legal name - no longer publicly used: Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority)

MTA New York City Transit (NYCT)
(legal name - no longer publicly used: New York City Transit Authority and its subsidiary, the Manhattan and Bronx Surface Transit Operating Authority). NOTE: The Bus division is now managed under bus services as noted above.

Governance

The MTA is governed by a 17-member Board representing New York City and each of the counties in the Transportation District.

Members are nominated by the Governor, with four recommended by New York City’s mayor, and one each by the county executives of Nassau, Suffolk and Westchester counties. Each of these members has one vote.

The executives of the northern counties of Dutchess, Orange, Rockland, and Putnam also nominate a member each, but these members cast one collective vote. The Board also has six rotating nonvoting seats held by representatives of organized labor and the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee, which serves as a voice for users of MTA transit and commuter facilities.

All Board members are confirmed by the New York State Senate.

External links

NY Metropolitan Transportation Authority home page

MetroCard Calculator

NYPIRG Straphangers' Campaign

MTA New York City Subway System Map

Unofficial Map of NYC Subway & Regional transit systems

Unofficial Interactive Map of NYC Subway (includes map of subway station entrances)

References

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