The MTA’s very first doomsday-plan service cut is at the starting gate.
On Wednesday, the LIRR special Belmont Park service won’t begin with the track’s spring racing season because of the agency’s troubled finances.
Belmont officials instead said they would use about $100,000 of their own funds to provide daily and weekend courtesy shuttles for passengers from the LIRR Queens Village station to accommodate track patrons.
The cut is the first of many for the MTA, and will later include dozens of buses and several subway lines. It comes as Albany legislators are deadlocked on a plan to rescue the MTA from its $1.2 billion budget gap.
“Hopefully the talks in Albany will work out,” said Kenneth Cook, the New York Racing Association’s head of Security.
“The shuttles are not the ideal service, it’s a little inconvenient, but we do have to fill that gap.” The MTA will still run the service for the Belmont Stakes on June 6. The white shuttle buses will run on the other 63 days of the season, from April 29 to July 26.
MTA fares will also skyrocket on May 31. Dozens of buses will be eliminated in June, and the W and the Z lines will be shuttered later in the year.
“We’re cautiously optimistic about talks in Albany,” Cook said. “Hopefully it will get running again.”