Over the last few months, I’ve repeatedly touched upon issues of cost in relation to the MTA’s decision to cut student MetroCards. As I explained again on Monday, it should cost between $687-$800 a year for one student’s school year travel without the option of free transit.
But what of the costs to the state to fund student travel? Tom Namako of The Post tackled this subject this week, and his findings are both staggering and unsurprising. The state won’t pony up more than $25 million — down for $45 million, up from $6 million — a year for student MetroCards, but it is content to spend over $1 billion busing students to school via the fleet of yellow buses. Namako also notes that the MetroCard program “help[s] move four times as many students at one-fifth of the cost of school buses.”
Namako continues:
The agency said it spends about $214 million to transport 585,000 students for free every year, with the city and state putting in only $45 million and $25 million respectively. Meanwhile, the Education Department’s $1 billion school-bus program moves only about 140,000 students, city statistics show.
That’s $786 million more for 445,000 fewer students. But city officials insist that money can’t be taken from one group and given to the other. “Busing requirements are set by state law. The city does not have the option of using busing money to fund MetroCards,” said one mayoral aide.
The DOE determines who is eligible for both yellow bus and free MTA services.
This is a staggering failure of politics and common sense from the city and state of New York City. Both of the entities responsible for getting students to school have been handed a literal golden transportation ticket, and they are both on the verge of letting the plan lapse. Meanwhile, these governments are content to flush money down the drain via a costly and inefficient yellow school busing system.
The MTA remains the nation’s only transit agency tasked with footing the bill for student transport, and there is simply no justification for it. It’s time for the state and city to swallow their anger and do the right thing. If the students are left stranded, it will be the fault of City Hall and Albany and not the MTA.
With so many moving vehicles around New York City, New York City Transit’s vehicles get into their fare share of accidents. Sometimes, pedestrians get clipped; sometimes, buses and other surface vehicles collide; sometimes, people who aren’t supposed to be in the subway tunnels find themselves being chased down by a train. The MTA then winds up on the defending end of numerous lawsuits and often choose to settle. Yesterday, though, the MTA rolled the dice and 
I don’t often delve into the arena of the federal transportation policy. Generally, the feds are happy to toss some money the MTA’s way and leave the country’s largest mass transit system to operate on its own. Most of the time, it’s a comfortable arrangement for everyone.
Throughout this week, MTA Board members and division heads will sit through a series of public hearings on the Authority’s latest proposed service cuts. Generally, a vocal minority of bus riders, paratransit users and student groups will browbeat the board members over cuts that will decimate bus riders, pare down Access-a-Ride and eliminate free student travel on New York City Transit’s buses and subways. Most people will heap tons of blame upon the shoulders of MTA Board members who have few avenues other than service cuts and fare hikes, and some of the city’s elected representatives — those same representatives who 
