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Early Addition
What, you thought this fare hike earlier this year that raised unlimited Metrocard costs and decreased discounting for multiple pay-per-rides, was it? Well, the MTA has a budget gap of about $900 million, so a fare hike is naturally the solution if you don't know what kind of money the city and state will offer up.
The Post reports the MTA decided to move up a potential 8% fare hike by six months, because of the "massive financial shortfalls." (The MTA likes to avoid having consecutive year hikes, and this year's fare hike was announced along with the warning another would be likely in 2010.) It's suggested the MTA will raise the subway and bus base fare of $2 to $2.25--remember, the MTA wanted to raise the base fare to $2.25 this year, but then Governor Spitzer steamrolled that.
Last month, the MTA announced that service improvements and projects would be delayed because of the agency's financial situation, what with real estate tax revenues being down, gas prices being up. Gene Russianoff of the rider advocacy group the Straphangers Campaign told the Times, "We’re not fans of fare hikes but my view about the hikes will turn largely on how much the city and the state will pony up to pay their fair share.” The MTA wants the city and state to kick in for things like student travel reimbursement and, per the News, "city, state and county governments...use [of] bridges and tunnels."
We'll take up the news of subway delays later.
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You would think that of all city agency's the MTA would be pushing for fuel efficient vehicles. I understand they need to raise fairs but damn lets invest in some thing that can help from raising fares every year. My "raise" can not keep up with pace of inflation so since things are costing a lot more it seems that I am making less.
the MTA blows. what the HELL are they spending all this money on!?!? it sure as shite isn't for taking care of the rat and rubbish problems.
i wish i could boycott. i know that would make no impact whatsoever but it would just make me feel better to not give them business and to not see rodents on my way home from a night out.
i just need to know how this will affect the monthly unlimited price...i can barely afford $81 as it is!! where does it go from there?
Good thing my company gives a "cost of living" raise. That extra $30/month will go straight to the MTA.
i blame the union
bankrupting this city one lazy bum at a time
Mismanagement is the real culprit here. That and the institutional dysfunction of Albany. As always, nobody is held accountable. I'd like to see Joe Bruno earning his taxpayer funded fat-cat pension by having to clean subway cars...
The MTA should be disbanned and any politician should be humiliated to have been in charge while the MTA was running this way. Bottom line is there are people running the MTA that make the clinically retarded and criminally insane look well suited to take care of children or operate on brains. No politician should be sitting there idly while we are repeatedly raped by the MTA. I'll save up this year and buy a Vespa or something. The trains and platforms are filthy, the service sucks, the drivers are crackheads with poor attitudes. Fuck the MTA. Maybe when we start petering out they'll make a change or two.
I wish the mta would privatize and get purchased by Japan Railways.
the sole purpose of the mta is to provide income and healthcare for the lazy, incompetent, and otherwise unemployable. not only for their years on the "job", but for the remainders of their lives....Transportation is a coincidental byproduct.
No one wants to hear it, but some of this is legitimate. I guess this is the downside in taking in revenue from real estate taxes. When the real estate market takes a hit...so does the MTA.
Folks, the union is not the problem. The agency heads are making well over six figures to provide analysis on how to improve the system. Therefore, we're paying them hundreds of thousands a dollars each to come up with the idea to raise fares (and to give themselves raises). That's the problem.
You guys are incredible.
It totally costs like 50 bucks and some thumbtacks to keep 600+ track miles of some of the most heavily used rail in the world going non stop, 24 hours a day.
50 bucks and some thumbtacks.
Oh and the magic energy fairy from ConEd just waves her magic fairy energy wand and poof, the system runs itself.
Yeah, that's the ticket.
If the MTA weren't run by lazy, self-serving, uneducated idiots perhaps we wouldn't mind a fare increase. However, when I see MTA workers standing around doing nothing (which is always) it makes my blood boil. And don't even THINK about asking for assistance! You'll be ignored. The last strike (Christmas season 2005) was totally f*cked up! They ruined everybody's holiday. I, myself, lost three days pay. The hiring standards should be raised so that people who are qualified can get some of these jobs that the union has a stranglehold on. These morons couldn't possibly hold a job anywhere without union protection.
to all you whiners, these systems do not run themselves. it takes a lot of money and sadly during a shitty economy rates always go up—as does crime...
are you really going to bitch about every rate hike for the next ten years? if you don't like it save your precious latte/beer money and invest in solar, wind, and hydro futures.
MTA has higher costs just like everyone else, so fare increase is probably inevitable. Sure, part of the problem might be with the TWU.
TWU workers are eligible for retirement after 25 years/age 55/ with benefits and half pay.
Considering that most people at 55 will likely live another 30 years, those pensions are a huge and costly benefit that aren't mentioned when the TWU complains about salaries.
A private sector employee would have to have amassed something like $2M in a 401k to provide a similar leval of benefits.
So your average MTA employee, who presently makes somewhere between $50,000 to $60,000 a year, can work that 9 to 5 plus overtime and retire secure in a payout at 55 while we fools in the private sector get to fund our own 401ks and hope there's enough to last when we finally stop working at 67.
I'll have to move.
Amazing that anyone would defend the MTA on any level. Where did my city go?
More
Trouble
Ahead
another reason to move
I do not know the inner-workings of the MTA in regards to corruption, mismanagement, etc, etc. I have no doubt the system could be run much much more efficiently and cost-effectively, but we pay $81 for an entire MONTH of transportation.
Buy a car and see how long that $81 will last you. About 3 days probably.
Headzo: no comparison. In a car you get to travel alone with no screaming brats or crazy homeless folks. You control your AC. your heat, your schedule. You don't have to walk blocks to a terminal. Who wouldn't rather have a car? Your response is wholly without merit.
20 & 21: depends on if you see your car as a burden or a blessing.
"Folks, the union is not the problem. The agency heads are making well over six figures to provide analysis on how to improve the system. Therefore, we're paying them hundreds of thousands a dollars each to come up with the idea to raise fares (and to give themselves raises). That's the problem."
10-20 non union guys making 200-400k a piece a year vs 30,000 union employees at 50-60K avg who cant be held accountable for poor work. Hmmmmm.
The MTA is burdened by rising electricity costs just like the rest of us. That's not mismanagement, that's simple economics.
Good thing we don't have that congestion pricing money. How come politicians never spin transit fare hikes as "a tax on the working class" like they did with CP?
agdthefan- I wouldn't rather have a car. Lots of people wouldn't rather have a car. Do you think every person is riding public transit because they can't afford a car?
No- mostly, people ride public transit in NYC because it's SUPERIOR to riding in a vehicle.
Let's see...
"In a car you get to travel alone" - except the thousands of drivers all around you creating traffic, road rage, etc
"You don't have to walk blocks to a terminal" - but I would rather drive around the block for 45 minutes looking for a place to park or pay $350 a month in a parking lot. much much better.
Based on YOUR argument, I doubt you live and work in the city.
to all you whiners, these systems do not run themselves. it takes a lot of money and sadly during a shitty economy rates always go up—as does crime...
are you really going to bitch about every rate hike for the next ten years? if you don't like it save your precious latte/beer money and invest in solar, wind, and hydro futures.
Yes, I will bitch because I have no other mass transit choice. Choice is what makes this country great, and unfortunately the consumer has no ability to pick the best market solution. If we privatized it similarly to the old days (IRT, BMT, et al.) and had those companies on contracts---there would be some market based choice.
lol, JMH... The MTA repeatedly shows it can't manage money, and you still believe that Congestion Pricing would have made a difference?
Granted, electricity costs more, but I'm guessing that is NOT a big factor in the MTA's need for more money. It's like any monopolistic bureaucracy: fat, lazy and grossly inefficient.
"You guys are incredible.
It totally costs like 50 bucks and some thumbtacks to keep 600+ track miles of some of the most heavily used rail in the world going non stop, 24 hours a day."
I don't think it's the fare increase itself that most people are offended by, it's the galling realization that we will be paying more, for no improvements to service, or possibly even lower quality service.
I recognize that mass transit in NYC is a relative bargain. And I honestly don't mind paying a bit more money to pay for improvements.
But I am going to bitch if I have to pay more and the extra money gets completely wasted instead of leveraged towards service improvements.
Headzo, no argument that the subway IS the cheapest, most convenient way for many New Yorkers to get around. But this isn't about whether cars or the subway is a better system.
This is about the MTA having budgets of billions of dollars, while its employees are predominantly unhelpful and rude, its stations are predominantly filthy eyesores, and [insert litany of complaints here], but meanwhile, year after year, they always need more money.
All real New Yorkers use the subway, and all real New Yorkers despise the MTA.
The unions are definitely not the problem. That's just a bait-n-switch - wherever you see systemic problems like this, ::pulls fake statistic out of rump:: 90% of the time it is the fault of management. I know because I'm in management. Believe me, it takes a hundred bad employees to match the damage of one manager's ineptitude. And almost always, those managers will go and blame it on their workers.
Those who ride the MTA every day and forgo the luxury of having a car should get tax credits, just like those people who put solar panels on their homes. We're doing our part to reduce CO2 and promote healthier lifestyles and this is the thanks we get... They need more money? Charge every inbound commuter vehicle an extra $3 on all tunnels and bridges to Manhattan. Heck, they can do it to smokers - why not target a rich demographic for once?
Same old story year after year.
Hey, I have an idea! Fire every single one of those "station agents," who make $50K+ a year and replace them with rookie transit cops, who make $35K a year and won't run away and hide when a guy gets attacked in the station with a hacksaw.
There. I just saved the MTA millions of dollars.
Oh, wait, here comes the TWU.
I love how everybody always blames the unions when it is not always cause of them.
I love the rookie cop idea!