Good news for those of us who ride the buses and subways today: The MTA won’t be raising fares next year and could hold off on fare hikes until after 2010.
Here’s what The Daily News had to say:
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is finalizing its 2007 budget and plans to vote by Christmas on a spending plan that holds the line on bus and subway fares, board sources said last night.
The final financial package, expected to be unveiled today and approved next month, also holds steady ticket prices for Metro-North and the Long Island Rail Road, as well as tolls for the MTA’s bridges and tunnels, the sources said.
MTA Chairman Peter Kalikow said this year he didn’t believe the $240 million in hikes – which had been on the books – would be needed because the economy, particularly the real estate market, was doing better than expected. The agency gets revenues from real estate transactions.
Coupled with the lack of fare hikes comes better news about the $20 million in proposed service cuts originally announced in September. According to MTA board sources, those cuts are off the table, The Daily News also reports. Originally, these cuts were planned as follows, according to The Times:
The cuts would add one to five minutes to wait times on many subway lines and local bus routes during off-peak periods. For subways, it would mean that on weekdays, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., all trains would run every 10 minutes, according to authority budget documents. Evening and late-night waiting times would be from 10 to 20 minutes.
Somehow, the money will flow in anyways, but now we the riders won’t be forced to wait longer or pay more.