NY Legislature Steps Up Against The Fare Increase

With the MTA's first board meeting tonight in Brooklyn, transit advocates have been increasingly clamoring for a halt to a fare increase slated for February. In addition to the Daily News daily assault against the MTA, state legislators have been joining the public chorus. Now the State Assembly and Senate are doing something that the rest of us can't, introducing a substantial budget increase for the MTA, a concrete solution that can put the brakes on the MTA's fare increase.

From The NY Sun:

State lawmakers today are announcing new legislation that would increase city and state aid to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority by $660 million, a boost they say could help stave off the fare hike scheduled for February.

Transit advocates are rallying behind the bill and are planning to voice their opposition to higher subway and bus fares this evening in Brooklyn at the first public hearing on the fare hike.

"The state has not been giving the MTA its fair share of revenue to operate the system," state Senator Thomas Duane of Manhattan, who is introducing the bill today, said.

"It's the MTA's job is to make the fare hike seem inevitable," the chief attorney for the Straphangers Campaign, Gene Russianoff, said. "We have some good arguments that this one isn't."

The proposal has finally hit some of the ears at the MTA. Some board members are pleased by it, but others still want to see $2 billion in funds for the next two years. According to board insiders, even this hefty sum doesn't seem to impress enough of the decision makers. For now, the MTA has a huge surplus and the body itself does not expect to run deficits until 2009.

Ultimately, the decision to increase fares might come down to the Mayor. If Bloomberg is smart, he'll head the board's decision to hike the fare and come down on the side of New Yorkers and not a board that probably doesn't even ride the subway much.