If New York City’s students won’t enjoy the benefits of free MetroCards, Mayor Bloomberg wants to know why retired transit workers should too. As Tom Namako reported earlier this week, Bloomberg, on his weekly radio show, questioned why retired TWU members get to enjoy the benefits of free transit for life at a cost of nearly $16 million annually to the MTA amidst a budget crunch for the authority. “I’m just pointing that out. It turns out that MTA is required to give the TWU retirees a free MetroCard once they begin receiving their pension payments,” he said.
Both MTA and TWU leaders downplayed the costs. A Metro-North official noted that most did not use their free passes during peak hours and said that the MTA “[doesn’t] see it as a center of revenue loss.” John Samuelsen, head of the TWU, questioned the Mayor’s dollar figure. “We have retirees that live all over the county, like in Florida, and they certainly don’t ride the subway,” he said. “They worked their whole life in the transit system, and they earned those passes.” Considering how he campaigned on a platform of MTA reform, the Mayor, long silent on the MTA’s current financial crisis, is shooting blanks here.
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W H Y D O E S R A T N E R G E T
A $ 100 M I L L I O N
F R E E R I D E, T H E N ? ?
Wasn’t the negotiated amount that Ratner agreed to originally alot more than 100 million?
No, it was always $100 million. The amount you’re thinking of is the actual valuation of the Atlantic Yards area, which was estimated at $200 million.