MTA Plans To Give Commuters the Business

They've been warning of severe cuts to service and fare and toll hikes for months. Here they come.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority's governing board Thursday authorized the agency to start the ball rolling of scheduling toll and fare hike hearings.

As reported in the Daily News, the MTA said it will have to raise fare revenue by 23% next year in order to stanch a gaping $1.4 billion budget gap.
RELATED: MTA PLANS ENORMOUS CUTS

MTA CEO Elliot Sander and Chairman Dale Hemmerdinger said the Albany Legislature has until March to adopt a bailout package that could avert the hikes and cuts, or at least lesson their severity.

"We can't make the money, we can't print it. Someone has to pay for the services we provide," said MTA chairman Dale Hemmerdinger at Thursday's board meeting.

That means the cost of a subway ride could skyrocket from $2 to $2.50 to $3, a possibility first reported in The Daily News on Nov. 12.

While the exact details of the hike are still being discussed, another round of crippling fare increases appears unavoidable.

Service cuts could start being felt as early as Spring and the fare hikes could hit in June. Commuter lines will also feel the blow of the budget ax.

They're also looking to cut 2,800 jobs through attrition, which begs the question of whether these people were required to keep things going or whether it was featherbedding (claiming most would be station agents and bus drivers). My guess is that it's the latter, although given the arcane methods used by the MTA to cook their books, there's no way to know the precise state of the fiscal situation at the MTA.

All this will end up doing is further increasing the cost of doing business in the city and people will take their business elsewhere. Of course, the City and State are both crying poverty themselves and aren't in a position to help the MTA out of their fiscal mess since their own fiscal situations are even more precarious.