He's not spelling out how he'd prefer they repurpose the new funding stream, but he's right that the new projects are expensive window dressing on a burning house.
I just don't buy this. The city could easily afford to just foot the bill with the economic traffic it drives. It's just a non-problem they trot out to work people up.
Ahh, I was imagining a Final Destination scenario
[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/05/nyregion/mta-fare-evasion...
If I apply your logic to all taxes, maybe if none of us paid them, we could expect to see a compensatory rise in economic activity? Doesn't hold water. This is a relatively new problem, and it's costing the city big money.
Whereas you see all government revenue as going into a single fungible bucket, and some people with your view may believe that recovering $700M of additional fare revenue is both practicable and necessary.
It's really more of a question of "who pays", in my opinion. I personally think any revenue system with low overhead is a good one.