Critics Say MTA Is Using One-Sided Ad Campaign To Push Bond Proposal

The advertisements the transit authority has placed in hundreds of subway cars do not come out and tell voters to support the $2.9 billion transportation bond on the November 8 ballot; they also don’t mention how the borrowing will add to the state’s already high debt burden.Critics of the bond proposal say the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which stands to reap $1.45 billion if voters approve Proposition 2 Tuesday, has used public money to fund a one-sided ad campaign that fails to mention the initiative’s costs, which include adding to the $46 billion of state debt.Even if the bond act passes, the MTA could face legal challenges from taxpayers who contend the authority crossed a line between education and advocacy with its subway ads.“It’s time to consider a legal challenge,” a former lieutenant governor under Governor Pataki, Elizabeth McCaughy, said. “Shame on the state authorities who allowed this to happen.”Ms. McCaughy said that with less than a week before the election, it is too late to get an injunction that might force the MTA to remove the ads, which she says illegally advocate a favorable position on the bond act.“Why is a public agency using public dollars to tell one side of a political story?” she asked. “Are the words indebtedness, burden, or future generations on that sign?”The precedent governing what a state authority or agency can say on behalf of a bond measure was established by a state Supreme Court judge in 1990, when an environmental bond measure was challenged by a government watchdog, Robert Schulz.The state’s Department of Environmental Conservation, Judge John Connor wrote, illegally used pamphlets to promote passage of the bond. The material included a message from Governor Cuomo, who said voting for the proposal “was the ultimate selfless act.”Public officials, the judge wrote, “have the responsibility to inform and educate the people and not to lead them by the nose into the voting booth.”Voters ultimately rejected the $1.975 billion measure.A spokesman for the MTA, Tom Kelly, said the authority has followed the court’s precedent in the ads, by detailing which projects would receive funding if the act passed.“They don’t tell you to vote for anything; they don’t say anyone endorses it,” Mr. Kelly said of the ads. “We give the information that gives the benefit to our customers.”The message of the subway ads is clearly positive, informing riders that such expansion projects as the Second Avenue subway and a Long Island Rail Road link to Grand Central Terminal are “all in the State Transportation Bond Act.”Each of the expansion projects would receive $450 million from the bond, an amount proponents say would make the projects available for critical federal funding.Some of the ads have an eye-catching headline that asks, “What’s it all about?” Critics of the bond say the ad answers only half the story. Debt is never mentioned.“It strikes me as illegal and unethical,” the president of the Hudson Institute, Herb London, said. “Both sides of the issue should be considered.”Even those who have not taken a position on the bond say the advertisements seemed crafted to leave a positive impression.“Technically, the ads are legal be cause they don’t say ‘Vote for it,'” the executive director of Common Cause New York, Rachel Leon, said. “It follows the letter of the law, but it’s questionable whether it follows the spirit of the law. It’s education that will make the voter feel good about the issue.”An Assembly member, Richard Brodsky, a proponent of the bond act who also sits on a committee overseeing the public authorities, said the MTA had not crossed a legal or ethical line.“If I thought for a minute that the MTA crossed the line, I’d say so,” he said.Perhaps the strongest evidence that the MTA ads do little to encourage riders to vote for the measure is that a group of transportation and business advocates have launched a $1.5 million campaign to pass the bond, including $400,000 for advertising.Although the MTA is a state authority, no agency is responsible for overseeing the advertising on the subways, buses, and commuter rails. Any legal challenge to the ads, therefore, would have to come, as in 1990, from individuals.

Critics Say MTA Is Using One-Sided Ad Campaign To Push Bond Proposal

Critics Say MTA Is Using One-Sided Ad Campaign To Push Bond Proposal

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