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New York City’s subways aren’t run by City Hall — they’re controlled by the governor, who works 150 miles north of the five boroughs.

That’s been the case since 1953, when the New York City Transit Authority was established as a state-run agency that technically leases the subway system. And all that time, there have been calls for the mass transit system to return to local control.

The demand returned this week, when City Comptroller Brad Lander — a mayoral candidate — announced his campaign’s transportation platform, which includes “exploring” whether the city could regain control of the subways, buses, and tolled bridges and tunnels from the MTA. If he controlled the agency, Lander said he would run subway trains every six minutes around the clock and unify the city’s disparate transit fare systems.

“It's bonkers right now that the same system doesn't enable you to go from subway to Citi Bike or from ferry to bus,” Lander griped.

Lander’s proposal would create a new city-run public authority called “Big Apple Transit.” It’s the same pitch made by former City Council Speaker Corey Johnson in 2019 as he geared up for his own failed mayoral run. Johnson would go on to drop out of the mayor’s race in 2021, run for comptroller and lose to Lander.

Another mayoral candidate, state Sen. Jessica Ramos, also supports giving the city more control over transit.

"I always say I would love for the mayor of the City of New York to be able to appoint the New York City Transit president or to have a greater say in what happens in the system," she said.

In theory, the city could take control of the subway system relatively easily by breaking the lease with the MTA. But in practice, the system would still depend on funding from Albany — and the whims of the governor and state Legislature.

“I am not in favor of bureaucratic rearrangement of deck chairs,” MTA Chair Janno Lieber said when asked about the idea.

Johnson’s push for city control of the subways six years ago came after transit service fell apart under former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who’s also running for mayor this year. The “summer of hell” in 2017 ultimately prompted the passage of billions of new funding sources — including congestion pricing — to fix aging MTA infrastructure.

In laying out his transportation platform on Wednesday, Lander used the opportunity to poke at Cuomo, calling him “a disastrous leader on transit as governor.”

“If Andrew Cuomo is mayor, we will not have the world-class transit and livable streets leadership that New Yorkers deserve,” Lander said.

Rich Azzopardi, a spokesperson for Cuomo, called Lander a “back of the pack candidate” who is “trying to distort the governor’s record because they don’t have ones of their own.”

“Governor Cuomo increased operational funding for the MTA by $2.4 billion annually, and made the largest Capital investment in history, a 125 percent increase from $24.27 billion to $54.8 billion,” Azzopardi said in a statement. “He also built the Second Avenue subway, the Moynihan Train Hall and made much needed repairs to the L train that prevented dreaded long-term closures.”

Elizabeth Kim and Ramsey Khalifeh contributed reporting.

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Emma, from Brooklyn

I would love to hear more about congestion pricing affecting subway ridership. I feel like ever since congestion pricing started, the trains have been much more crowded.

Answer

Subway ridership has ticked up a bit since congestion pricing’s launch on Jan. 5, but it’s hard to tie the increase to the tolls. Subway turnstiles clocked 4.2 million entries on Thursday, April 24 — the second most in a single day since March 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic upended commuting patterns in the city. Before the pandemic, there were more than 5.5 million subway rides a weekday.

Daily ridership has also increased since January, but the number of people using the system tends to be higher in the spring than in the winter. Still, the MTA reported about 82,000 fewer cars entered the congestion zone south of 60th Street in Manhattan every day in March. It would follow that some of those drivers became riders in the subway system. The MTA points out ridership is up around 8% from this time last year. That could be due to congestion pricing pushing people out of cars and into transit, but is also in line with the MTA’s long-term projections for riders to return to the system as fewer people work from home.

The latest NYC area transit headlines

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The new harder-to-cheat fare gates. The MTA said it plans to install four different fare gate designs across 20 subway stations later this year as part of a broader crackdown on fare evasion. These new gates, which will replace the horizontal turnstiles that are relatively easy to jump over, will all have glass sliding doors that officials said are “very difficult” to force open.

Civil liberties advocates aren’t thrilled. The MTA is working with artificial-intelligence companies to deploy software that would analyze real-time footage from subway security cameras and issue automated alerts to the NYPD “if someone is acting out irrationally.”

NJ Transit locomotive engineers are on the brink of striking. The transit agency, which is accusing union members of demanding unrealistic pay increases, asked office workers to prepare to work from home in order to save transit seats for essential workers.

Is there a less disruptive way to fix the East River tunnels? The MTA board on Wednesday passed a resolution condemning Amtrak’s plan to fully close and shut down one tube at a time over the next three years, arguing that the slightest issue could cause a massive headache for Long Island Rail Road commuters.

Amtrak generally has a bad record when it comes to fixing things. The inspector general for the national railroad company — which the Trump administration has assigned to take over the Penn Station renovation project — has routinely found evidence of inefficiency, waste and mismanagement.

Gov. Kathy Hochul said she’s open to renaming Penn Station after Donald Trump — if he puts up the money.

Listen to us talk about all this! Download our app and tune in to “All Things Considered” around 4 p.m. on Thursdays. And catch up on last week’s segment in case you missed it.