Over time the price of admission on the MTA's subway system will go up, but for them to insist on three increases in less than three years? That is insane. Like I pointed out yesterday, the Authority depends on funds from an unreliable system of real estate taxes. Albany must fix this and find a better way to fund our city's mass transit, because articles like this are unacceptable.
From The NYT CityRoom:
At a contentious meeting at its Midtown headquarters, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority board provided new details about its plan to plug a gaping hole in its finances. Not only is it seeking an 8 percent increase in revenue from fares and tolls, to take effect July 2009, but it also is requesting an additional 5 percent to take effect by January 2011 — for a cumulative increase of 13.4 percent over 18 months.
In presenting its preliminary budget for the 2009 fiscal year on Wednesday morning, the authority made no attempt to conceal what it considers to be its worst fiscal situation since the economic downturn that followed 9/11. When fares last went up, in March, the authority’s plan was not to have another fare increase until January 2010, with future increases every two years thereafter. Now that entire schedule has been moved forward — by six months for the initial increase and by a year for the projected future increases. (Jeremy Soffin, an authority spokesman, said after the meeting that the 2011 increase might be pushed ahead a few months to get as close as possible to the goal of two years between increases.)
The authority’s leaders said the fare and toll increases are necessary by the confluence of soaring energy prices and a plunge in revenue from real-estate transactions, which are a prime source of the authority’s revenue. The authority is struggling to pay the interest on billions of dollars in debts that have accumulated since the 1980s, but exploded since 2000, to pay for expensive equipment upgrades; debt service alone is expected to consume one-fifth of all authority spending by 2012.
Soaring energies prices I can sympathize with, but not at a 13.4 percent cost increase (on top of the latest jump in fares in the spring of this year). As much as I dislike Mayor Bloomberg, he is right when he said that any company with a ten billion dollar budget can find a way to close a 5% gap. He did it to the city (which sucks for services of course) and the MTA can do it for themselves so they do not always immediately pass on the cost to the straphanger.
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