By Philip Newman
“It's appalling to hear the MTA raise the specter of fare increases and service cuts a mere 15 months after they enacted the largest fare hike in history,” said City Councilman John Liu (D-Flushing).The MTA presented the requests for higher transit revenues and service cuts last Thursday as part of its $8.4 billion budget for 2005-2008. The MTA board approved public hearings on the proposals with four board members Susan Kupferman, Mark LeBow, John H. Banks III and Mark Page voting against it out of the 23-member board. All the dissidents are appointees of Mayor Michael Bloomberg.Under the proposal, the seven-day unlimited ride MetroCard would go from $21 to $24 and the 30-day unlimited MetroCard from $70 to $75. The one-day unlimited card and the $10 Bonus card would not change.The changes would raise the average fare from $1.26 to $1.32.”This is a 6-cent increase,” said MTA Chairman Peter Kalikow. “We don't believe it is a lot.”For express bus riders, the hike would be more steep: $6 instead of $4.The proposals for extracting more money from commuters along with cuts in service came 15 months after bus and subway fares rose from $1.50 to $2 and were the result of the financial straits in which the MTA still finds itself.The agency has a $540 million budget deficit now and a $1.2 billion deficit looms next year with the deficit rising to $1.3 billion in 2006.The MTA's fiscal woes follow years of prodigious borrowing to pay for rebuilding the transit system, including the purchasing of hundreds of new subway cars and buses. The MTA is also pushing ahead with preliminary plans for the Second Avenue subway and the East Side Access project to bring Long Island Rail Road trains into Grand Central Terminals. Gov. George Pataki's administration has forced the MTA into such heavy borrowing because it stopped contributing to the agency's capital plan and the Bloomberg administration has lessened its share. Both the city and state provide operating subsidies to the MTA.Demonstrators held up signs critical of Pataki and Bloomberg during last week's MTA board meeting and a succession of speakers implored the agency not to raise fares and cut service.”New York City and New York state must recognize that New York City cannot remain a global city and the state's economic engine without a good public transportation system,” said Beverly Dolinsky, executive director of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA. If you don't want to drive all your customers away, fares have to remain affordable.”Liu, who is chairman of the City Council Transportation Committee, has long accused the MTA of a lack of accountability.”While the MTA once again claims to suffer looming deficits, the agency continues to propose grand projects that will cost billions,” Liu said. “For example, as the MTA proposes outlandish fare increases for express bus riders, they continue to talk of spending billions for new LIRR and subway tunnels in Manhattan. The net effect of all these proposals is a shift of resources from city residents to suburban commuters as well as a dilution of services for Queens residents.”Gene Russianoff, attorney for the transit activist agency Straphangers Campaign, spoke before the MTA meeting began. He referred to the MTA's consideration of naming subway stations and other transit facilities for corporate entities to raise money and said “if there is a fare increase, it has a name, It will be called the ÔGeorge E. Pataki fare increase.'”Later, after several other speakers accused the governor and the mayor of dodging what they saw as their financial responsibilities to the MTA, Kalikow said: “I just want to say now that I take offense to people saying the mayor and the governor are not contributing to this system. The next time somebody tells you that, tell them they're wrong.”
