The cash-strapped MTA today raised a single bus and subway ride to a whopping $2.50 in a bid to close a $1.2 billion budget gap after Albany lawmakers failed to come up with a bailout plan.
And it’s going to get worse.
Just minutes after approving the drastic fare hikes and service cuts, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority said they could return next month to once again demand even higher fares from straphangers next year unless the state Legislature can agree on a rescue plan.
A one-year financial Band-Aid from Albany lawmakers won’t stop the agency from bleeding more money in the coming years and riders will have to make up the difference, MTA Executive Director and CEO Elliot “Lee” Sander said.
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“It could well be soon,” Sander said. “Potentially in April.”
The fare hikes approved by the MTA today will bring the cost of a 30-day unlimited MetroCard from $81 to a staggering $103.
The increases on city buses and subways will go into effect May 31.
An increases discussed in April wouldn’t go into effect well into next year.
The agency also passed a series of service cuts and layoffs.
The board had to pass the fare hikes after the state Legislature failed to come up with a last-minute bailout plan.
“So, now it’s up to the [state] Senate to do something,” Mayor Bloomberg said while in Albany today, a day after he told riders to get “mad as hell” at state lawmakers.
Gov. Paterson and a majority of the Assembly supported a revenue-raising plan to plug the deficit by placing a $5 toll on the East and Harlem river bridges.
That plan, which was devised by former MTA Chairman Richard Ravitch, later stalled in the state Senate.
“Our friends in Albany have lost their way,” MTA board member James Sedore said of the reason why the agency had to raise fares.
Prior to the vote, MTA board member Norman Seabrook urged other members not to pass the increases in order to “let those in Albany do their job.”
“Let’s take the public off the hook,” he said.
In the end, the board approved the increases by a vote of 12-1.
“We refuse to bring the system – your MTA – to the brink of disaster,” MTA Chairman Dale Hemmerdinger said before the vote.
Fares on the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North trains will also rise an average of 23 percent, while tolls will go up on the MTA’s bridges and tunnels.
Increases on suburban commuter trains will go into effect June 1, while tolls will rise on July 11.
The board also approved a series of service cuts, including the elimination of 20 bus routes and shortening five subway lines.
Starting in June, late-night service on the N line will be cut. Those trains will no longer stop at Lawrence and Court Street stations in Brooklyn and Whitehall and Rector Street stops in lower Manhattan.
Some 1,100 transit workers will also be laid off as part of the massive cuts.
“There are no other moves in the board’s playbook,” Sander said about the decision to raise fares and cut service.
Sander said despite cost-cutting measures over the past two years, the MTA’s finances have been crippled by the ongoing recession. A downturn in real estate taxes and mounting debt service costs related to mega-construction projects such as the Second Avenue Subway
“I hope that the state Legislature reaches an agreement… that provides a long-term solution to the MTA’s capital needs,” said Sander.
The MTA’s boardroom was packed with elected officials and members of the public, many holding up signs that said “rescue transit.”
One public speaker, civil rights lawyer Norman Seigel, asked how many people on the board “use trains and buses regularly” – and only about half the members raised their hand.
Adding to the agency’s budget woes, board member Nancy Shevell, who has been dating Paul McCartney, was criticized for skipping a key meeting Monday in order to attend a gala film opening in London with the ex-Beatle.
Shevell is “someone who does not belong on the MTA board,” said City Councilman John Liu (D-Queens), chairman of the council’s Transportation Committee.
Shevell, who was back in the city Tuesday night, was at this morning’s meeting. She voted for the increases.