Comments on: A $214 million negotiating tactic

By: John

John — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 04:08:26 +0000

Finding money for the Student MetroCard program is vital to the health of the city. All of the agencies must work together to keep the city from going into tough times, with dropout rates and street crime soaring. If the DOE truly doesn’t have the money, the MTA should step in and fund the program. I’m sure there are ways to cut costs and improve service. Making certain routes limited-stop routes can accomplish that.
If push came to shove, I’d keep the Student MetroCards over some extra service. $214 million – $70 million from the city and state = $144 million. $214 million/2 due to students avoiding/evading the fare = 107 million. $107 million – $70 million = $37 million. The city is going to go through some tough rimes for less than 10% of the MTA’s $383 million budget gap.

By: Russell Warshay

Russell Warshay — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 20:39:53 +0000

The budget issues need to be addressed now, not when the current union contract expires. The MTA won’t be able to address pension and health care costs for years – unless they go into bankruptcy.

Does anyone know if bankruptcy is an option for the MTA?

By: Benjamin Kabak

Benjamin Kabak — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 20:30:54 +0000

The agency is also legally obligated to run trains. Check out the Public Authorities laws that grant it its powers. The pension obligations come out of contractual law and its (somewhat misguided concessions and) agreements with its unions.

By: Kaja

Kaja — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 20:29:07 +0000

False dichotomy. The way out of this is to cut loose all the pensioners who retired at fiftysomething on a large percentage of their salary with fully-funded healthcare the likes of which us private-sector schlubs can only dream.

The MTA is a pension-service organization which owns some trackage. It’s legally obligated to service those pensions, not to run trains. This is why it behaves as it does.