Opinion

The MTA’s $andy aftermath

Mta Chairman Joe Lhota last week spelled out his agency’s daunting fiscal challenges one month after Superstorm Sandy.

He’s optimistic that the system can be made whole without riders being hit with another fare hike — but those riders would be well advised to assess that assertion with a gimlet eye.

Yes, Lhota said, the MTA faces an almost $5 billion Sandy bill. But, he added Wednesday, “The burden of Sandy will not be upon our riders” — essentially pledging that tolls and fares won’t go up above already planned 7 percent hikes in 2013 and 2015.

He anticipates the bulk of Sandy’s bill to be paid by $1 billion in insurance and an expected $2.75 billion in FEMA reimbursements.

Expected — not guaranteed.

And that still leaves about another $1 billion as repairs continue on the devastated South Ferry and Whitehall stations in Manhattan and the A line in the Rockaways.

To address that hole, the MTA will float 30-year bonds, producing debt-service payments of $62 million in 2016.

That’s on top of the $2 billion a year that’s already going for debt service.

Make no mistake: Even before Sandy, Lhota had done an exceptional, professional job in the barely 11 months he had headed the MTA.

His trimming of discretionary costs and fringe benefits under management control had put the agency on a path to saving $1.13 billion by 2016.

His no-nonsense, focused approach in the days after the storm, making the system more than 90 percent whole within two weeks, has been universally — and rightly — praised.

But facts are facts.

While Lhota’s commitment to keeping faith with riders on fare hikes is to be commended, extraordinary unforeseen expenses have to be confronted.

Floating bonds — taking on more debt — is in no way a free lunch.

A piper will have to be paid.

Absent any new savings, that may mean tax revenue going to debt service or an added premium on fares and tolls. Either way, New Yorkers will end up paying for Sandy’s devastating hit on the nation’s biggest metropolitan public transportation system.

That’s a troubling but unavoidable truth.