MTA, Your Insignificant Other

NY Times photographer Ozier Muhammad took this great photograph of the MTA's board voting to give riders holiday discount fares that'll cost the agency $50 million. Gothamist loves this photo because it remind us that when we dress up like an old, white man on Halloween, we can not only call ourselves say we're some sort of Beltway politician, we can also say we're on the board of the MTA.

After the 12-2 vote, Chairman Peter Kalikow made one of his usual stupid remarks that reminds us of how much he kills us: "In a small, and in a somewhat insignificant way, this is the way we're saying, thank you." Good lord, he's a dumbass. Maybe he said "insignificant" to get the opponents of the fare discount, who say the money should be put towards the commuter railroads, off his back. Governor Pataki, who opposed the fare discount, had one of his flunkies ask that the vote be delayed until after Election Day, when voters will decide on the Transportation Bond Act, but Kalikow said that then the MTA wouldn't be able to get the discount up and running in time for the holiday period. Straphangers attorney Gene Russianoff tells Newsday that "fireworks" will occur at the next MTA board meeting when they meet to decide how the MTA spend the rest of its surplus as the MTA and Pataki representatives will be duking it out.

And the Daily News reminds us the last time subway fare cost $1, "a Democrat was mayor, the Giants were Super Bowl champions and you had to use a token." Tokens!