As the Metropolitan Transportation Authority begins a series of town-hall hearings this week to sell its proposed fare hikes to the public, it faces an uphill battle convincing riders, politicians and transportation advocates that this is a good time for such a move.
The M.T.A.— which is projected to run a budget deficit of $1.3 billion for 2008, growing to $2.2 billion in 2010 — has proposed raising base fares next year from $2 to $2.25. The hikes, scheduled to begin in February, would raise about $320 million.
But a broad spectrum of critics say there are alternative sources of funding that should be pursued before there is a fare increase.
More than 45 legislators and several civic groups signed onto a letter on Oct. 24, pleading with M.T.A. head Elliot “Lee” Sander to hold off on a fare hike until Albany votes on a budget in April.
On Monday, hours before the M.T.A.’s first public hearing on the proposed fare hikes, State Senator Tom Duane and other electeds held a press conference, introducing legislation to get nearly $700 million in city and state funds to plug the hole in the M.T.A.’s operating budget. And in a report issued earlier this year, New York City Comptroller William Thompson, Jr. identified $728 million in new revenue to close the M.T.A.’s budget gap for one year.
Meanwhile, implementing a fare increase while Mayor Bloomberg’s congestion-pricing proposal hangs in the balance also seems misguided. The 17-member commission charged with studying the proposal will make its recommendation by Jan. 31, after which it goes to the City Council and then to the State Legislature, who must consider the plan by March 31. If it is approved, New York will reap $354 million in federal Transportation Department funds to implement the project and the M.T.A.’s long-term capital project shortfall could end, with perhaps as much as $30 billion money in additional revenue from congestion tolls over 20 years.
The connection between the mayor’s plan and the M.T.A.’s budget woes was made even clearer by the agency itself in a report issued in early October, wherein it predicted more revenue under congestion pricing with an increase in riders.
All of which underlines the idea that mass transit needs funding —not fare increases — and that the most innovative proposal out there remains congestion pricing.
Sander has gotten deserved high marks from transportation advocates for making his agency’s budget more transparent, and being more responsive to riders.
But implementing a fare increase that will pose a hardship on millions of mass-transit riders is hardly the answer at this point, with so many alternatives beginning to emerge, and just as Sander begins to rework the bloated bureaucracy he inherited. If anything, a fare increase now would only stymie any innovation that might otherwise be in the making at the M.T.A.
