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The sky is falling undergound! (And above ground, where the buses drive.) At an MTA finance committee this morning, officials announced that they're looking at a $1.2 billion budget deficit in 2009, which is $300 million more than what was projected in July. Chief executive Elliot Sander says the dire fiscal situation was caused by a sharp drop in revenue from real estate and corporate taxes. Sanders also said that because "the 2000-2004 capital program was essentially put on a credit card," the MTA is facing massive interest payments which are projected to rise to $2 billion by 2012. According to City Room, Sanders warned that "if the governor and the Legislature do not act within a certain period of time, in the spring, then the fare and toll increase and the service reductions will take place." In a statement, Governor Paterson reminded New Yorkers that a special commission will soon release a report on ways to manage the MTA's "dire fiscal situation." One option under consideration is to start charging tolls on the East River bridges.
MTA's Dire Situation More Dire Than Ever!
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one thing i dont understand. monthly metrocard prices go up while single ride passes stay the same. shouldn't we tax the tourists, who buy single rides or weeklies, rather than the residents who buy monthlies?
Blame Spitzer for not letting the base fare go up in 2007. He proclaimed it as a great victory for New Yorkers by preventing the base fare from going up while letting the unlimiteds go.
flynn - b/c many people buy their cards through a corporate program where you get your money removed from your paycheck pre-tax. Basically, they can get away with it....
the ones who don't have that type of pre-tax situation get totally screwed.
get ready for BOTH a fare hike AND service reductions. The MTA Sucks!!!
#3: They could also get away with raising the fare for occasional riders and tourists. No one is going to not travel to New York based on the subway fare...that's not even something most people research before they get here. Even if the base fare were $3, it would still be a fraction of the cost of any other mode of transport.
it's mobbed up union contractors taking all the money. all the money goes to their sweet time taking asses. a monthly job takes years for them. They just bleed the system dry.
Perhaps congestion pricing wasn't such an elistist ideal. Bloomberg could have done a better job of selling the program. If NYers realized that the deficit would be so large, they would be more willing to push local politicans to vote for the plan that would have hurt wealthy commuters from Westchester and Jersey.
So now what? Tolls on the East River bridges?
Raise the single ride fare.
I'm still waiting for my service improvements on the 1 in exchange for the last fare increase.
Oh, you mean that was never going to happen?
I'll gladly pay a much higher monthly rate if I can do a stop payment or get a refund for any day when the trains are fouled up and make me late to work. I wonder if anyone has ever tried to do a partial stop payment.
Fire some overpaid and slow moving, lazy union employees.
The thing with raising the single ride fare is that it is a political hot potato dating back to the days of Tammany Hall with Mayor Hylan and his "Five Cent Fare Club" which basically got him reelected. The whole thing was over a row that got him fired as a BMT motorman where according to legend he was fired after taking a curve to fast while reading a law book. He hated the BMT and basically helped cause them and the IRT to go bankrupt by keeping the fare artificially low. He also spearheaded the movement to build the IND subway, again out of spite for the BMT.
Since then, the subway fare has been a political third rail. Today, since the base fare is something that everyone knows, but few pay, it remains sort of a shorthand for fare hikes. The MTA seems to realize this and raises the the fare for those who use the system the most and buy unlimited MetroCards while the occasional rider just pays the $2.00. It also allows the politicians to tell half truth about not raising the fare.
Ahh, the justification for the fare increases begins...
here's what i don't understand: the federal government can throw 700b at wall street, but it can't cover 1-3b for one of the most extensive public transportation systems in the world, one that is used daily by the working masses of 'main street'
How about a commuter strike? Anyone? Anyone??
Congestion pricing was NEVER an "elitist ideal," it was just successfully painted that way by representatives of (effectively, if not technically) suburban car commuters like Brodsky and Weiner and Liu and Fidler. They may have claimed that "working-class New Yorkers" would be hurt by congestion pricing, but how do they think the hard-working men and women who clean their office buildings every night get to work? It's not by car, I'd wager.
BRIDGE AND TUNNEL TOLLS, Please!
How about them doing something about the people who sneak on the back of buses, other than completely ignoring it?
Yeah, but don't do congestion pricing or anything. Nah. There's plenty of cash.
This is why everyone who voted congestion pricing down should be kicked out of office.
When are we going to realize that things cost money? We have to increase taxes (tolls are just usage taxes) if we don't want the sky to keep falling.
#12 Do you have any idea how many hands are out for that money right now? I gotta say, if NYC was even in the running for it (which I sincerely doubt) it would be way at the bottom. Especially the way they painted the need for the bailout.
Lets see, a total collapse of society in which 50%+ of the population becomes jobless due to lack of credit or trying to keep some people who are whining about a slight increase in their MTA fares.
I dunno... tough choice.
NYC is an expensive place to live. Deal with it or move, its not a 'right' to be able to live here.
How about a Federal Audit of the MTA?
Whatever happened to "Fire them All"?
Raise it as high as you want, I just want consistent, decent service and a lot of cops on the trains. Just write off your metrocards at the end of the year. I use the subway enough to shell out to make it work, just like NPR.
@19
Yep, its federal audit time. LIRR's disability scam, and LIRR's "do one tiny extra thing a day and you get another day's salery". Endless construction on the weekends. Tracks and ties do not need to be replaced every 5 years.
Then there are the mob connected contractors who always get all the bids (Slattery Skanska). Time for the MTA to hire in-house if its going to need labor for 5 or 10 years to do something, then lay them off or set them to work on another project. There is no excuse for the endless contractor usage. Stop the pork!
This has to be the least sympathetic agency in the world. I agree with the federal audit esp. since last time they found they had 2 books = LITERALLY!!! I don't understand how they could possibly be losing money when most NY-ers have no choice but to ride the trains to and from work every day and they are more packed than ever.