He's saying it's not going to finance any "investments" - the extra money is just going to the unions.

Hasn't the state also been directly taking money meant for mass transit in general for years?

Lol no. The State through various schemes has been propping up the MTA for years. The bridges and tunnels (rightly) subsidize the mass transit. The state also imposed an additional sales tax for people 100 miles away to raise more revenue.

The MTA’s woes are death from a thousand cuts.

I’d love to hear more about that. US unions seem broken in such interesting ways. Are they generally seen as a cost driver, apart from working to raise salaries and pensions?

Few ideas:

Structure the fares to charge a premium for low volume riders. Work two days a week? Pay for 5.

Collect fares.

Raise bridge tolls.

Drop construction cost drivers. Change liability laws, reduce MWBE requirements, mandated staffing levels, etc.

There’s lots of potential areas. Just politically expensive to do.

What problem would you solve by a “drive twice, pay for five” scheme?

I think that would incentivize people to drive more, not less.

The same problem that congestion pricing aims to solve - more revenue for the MTA.