Straphangers are getting a three-month reprieve from impending MTA fare hikes, thanks to a surprising turnaround in the agency’s normally bleak finances, officials said yesterday.
The planned 2013 hikes — expected to bring in around $450 million for the agency — will now kick in March 1 instead of the start of January, MTA Chairman Joseph Lhota said.
Agency bean-counters pushed the date as far as they could without harming the MTA’s budget, which is more robust than expected due to extreme cost-cutting, Lhota said.
“We owe it to our riders to collect [only] when we absolutely need to collect,” he said.
Public hearings on those hikes — which will raise fares across subways, buses, commuter rail lines and bridges and tunnels — will be held in November.
Officials have said they will amount to a 7.5 percent increase across the board, but it’s unclear how much individual prices will rise.
The good news comes as the MTA announced plans to restore, extend and add service on almost 40 bus, subway and rail lines.
Those plans include the permanent extension of the G train to Church Avenue in Brooklyn, the addition of five bus routes and extending existing lines on 13 others, officials said.
One new bus line— which has yet to be given a number — will run along the Williamsburg waterfront, which has had a recent surge in housing.
And in September 2013, the MTA will launch a north-south route from the West Village to Hell’s Kitchen.
Many of the improvements — particularly on bus lines and the Long Island Rail Road — restore service that was cut two years ago, when the MTA was grappling with a $900 million budget hole.
For the first time in two years, the M21, M1, Q76, and S76 buses will operate on weekends.
And the B39 — a popular route that made loops from Williamsburg to the Lower East Side before it was eliminated — will be brought back in January.
Added service on the LIRR’s Long Beach, Montauk and Port Jefferson branches will also be brought back in March.
Metro-North will also be getting a huge boost in service on the Hudson, Harlem and New Haven lines to reduce crowding.
Much of that added service will run on weekends.
The LIRR’s Ronkonkoma line will also get more service on weekends and during rush hour because of ridership gains.