Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand joined locals officials and MTA executives Friday in asking Congress for assistance in funding.

The group met at the North White Plains train station calling on Congress for $3.9 billion to ensure the MTA can run at full capacity. MTA ridership was down 95% at the height of the pandemic, costing the agency billions of dollars.

“This funding is essential to enable the MTA to make it through the rest of the year,” says the senator. “But, it is also clear we will need to do much more to fund the MTA in 2021 in order to ensure that it can continue to operate until revenue and ridership return to more sustainable levels.”

This year alone, the MTA has already lost $8 billion and it is expecting up to $7 billion in losses in 2021.

“We may have to lag payroll, we may have wage freezes and we may have service reductions and layoffs,” says MTA Chairman Patrick Foye. “None of those things are things that we want to do.  They could be avoided by this funding.”

Many people in the tri-state area rely on the MTA when it comes to their everyday livelihood.

“Basically, we all are going to need the trains to be in service when we all go back to work, and we will all go back to work,” says White Plains resident Rhonda Sexer-Levy. “We have to hope that we will. So, we need to keep them in business until the time comes.”

Earlier this month, Gillibrand urged Senate leadership to provide an additional $32 billion in emergency supplemental funding for 2020-2021. The prospective funds would support public transit agencies in the next COVID-19 stimulus package.