This comment is typical HN “government bad can do no right” fodder. The MTA is truly a marvel in the service it provides. The only advantage it has is age, which is why it is so expansive.
As for commercialising the stations, does the MTA try to do so and fail, or are they forbidden from doing so effectively (often by the same people who are pushing the narrative that there is something wrong with the organisation)?
If you live anywhere in Brooklyn or Queens, the MTA is an inconvenience that constantly reminds you that the spirit of Robert Moses haunts your city to the present day, and that he really, really would like you to ride a private vehicle. Those boroughs are littered with coverage and frequency gaps that can turn a 40 minute car ride into a 2 hour subway ride. And god help you if you ever need to take a bus.
The capital improvements you mention are improvements on the margins. The MTA needs to engage in a radical rethink of NYC metro area transit. There needs to be radial lines - plural - crossing through Brooklyn and Queens at regular intervals to move as much traffic as possible out of Manhattan. The IBX is a good start, but it should also cross through Staten Island and the Bronx. Queenslink should absolutely be built[0], the N/W should extend to LaGuardia Airport, Utica Ave needs a subway line, and the subway in general should extend through Nassau County and Yonkers. Nassau and Suffolk counties need way more north-south rail[1] than they currently have (which is zero) and the same probably could be said for the service areas of MNR.
The bad part of government is not that it can't run a successful transit service. Actually, government is very good at taking a politically popular service and preserving it[2]. But this comes with a cost: extreme conservatism. You see, our government also happens to have a military that is obsessed with roads; and they pay a 900% subsidy to highway projects. So even states that like transit are hard-pressed to actually fund coverage improvements because it's capital inefficient to build anything that isn't a road. And private institutions building their own rail or transit services will just get absolutely crushed by the road subsidy making driving the only good option. So, government bad, actually, but not for the reason you think.
Also, you're replying to someone talking about NYC in particular. Politics in this area are notoriously corrupt; NJ had a mayor who literally closed a bridge to punish people who didn't vote for him. LIRR in particular has a labor scandal every decade or so. And don't forget, Trump was a NY real estate guy before he decided to tear apart America's political fabric.
[0] In fact, it's kind of absurd they didn't do this when they initially switched the Far Rockaway line over from LIRR to subway service!
[1] This would actually be a good opportunity for light rail, unlike the MTA's initial idea of making the IBX a light rail line
[2] See also: Amtrak.
What in particular about the MTA would you change?
Remove the diversity compliance requirement from bids, e.g. [1]. Open up bids to any firm in the nation and select winners based on cost and competence only. Subject the MTA to a forensic audit every ten or twenty years.
They come with certification requirements. The one that RFQ lists are NYC specific.
> are you suggesting that all non-white non-male people are incompetent?
I’m saying a local-only bidding pool will necessarily be smaller than a national one. And requiring local certification guarantees the former.
I’m objecting to diversity compliance. Not diversity requirements. (Though even there, one needs to be cognizant of how quickly intersecting requirements can rapidly cascade the candidate pool to small numbers.)
The solution was to re-structure the MTA. But that’s hard work. Politicians would rather blame the other side and just raise taxes. The people like it because they are grabbing money from what they consider it to be their oppressors.