A few hours ago, I reported on the impending death of the Ravitch Commission plan. While the New York State Assembly is ready and willing to support Sheldon Silver’s amended plan, the State Senate is nowhere near a resolution.
Earlier in the day on Wednesday, though, the MTA had already assumed that the Senate wouldn’t be riding to their rescue. The agency sent out a press alert about an emergency board meeting scheduled for Friday at 11 a.m. The meeting, according to the Daily News, will not be a happy one:
The MTA is moving closer to pulling the trigger on its doomsday option after a plan to rescue the agency’s crippled budget with new bridge tolls appears to have derailed.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has scheduled an emergency board meeting tomorrow to discuss failed efforts to win approval of a revenue-raising plan crafted by former MTA Chairman Richard Ravitch.
Also on the agenda are plans to gear up for fare hikes – between 25% and 30% – that will hit turnstiles and fareboxes June 1. A monthly MetroCard, now $81, could skyrocket to as much as $103 under the budget adopted by the MTA board in December.
The MTA isn’t throwing in the towel, and neither is the State Senate. According to the News:
Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith, a Queens Democrat, said tolls were “not off the table” but could not say whether any agreement was within reach. “We’re still working – that’s the best I can tell you right now,” Smith said.
But the reality is that the March 25th deadline — a slightly flexible one at that — is rapidly approaching, and the MTA has to start gearing up for the worst-case scenario that awaits them. It’s not too late for New Yorkers to make their voices heard on this issue. Far more people stand to suffer from service cuts and fare hikes than from bridge tolls. The state can ill afford to let the MTA fail.
2 comments
If the doomsday budget goes into effect, I don’t know what I am going to do about getting to work. I ride the LIRR and the subway daily and use monthly passes for both. As of right now, I am paying a combined $266 per month just to get to and from work. That’s almost a car payment. If the doomsday budget goes into effect as is, I will be paying well over $300 per month, or almost $4,000 per year just to get to my job. And my company doesn’t offer TransitChek or anything like that.
Mitch, I’m not sure where in LI you come from, but a cheaper alternate would be to drive to the Shea Stadium park-and-ride lot (or whatever they call it now), pay $3 to park, and then take the 7 train into the city. My wife used to do that a lot. Unless gas reaches $4/gallon again, it will be cheaper, although less comfortable.