On Friday afternoon — a very good time to deliver some bad news — Gov. David Paterson did just that. The state, he said, faces a projected budget deficit of nearly $50 million over the next three and a half years, and to close a gap of $3 billion for the current fiscal year, the Governor has proposed a slew of cuts that include pain for the MTA. The state may cut $113 million in MTA subsidies, and that dreaded F-word may be back on the table.
For the MTA, this news is bad. Although the budget proposal requires legislative approval, it’s hard to imagine the already-stingy state subsidies surviving these fiscal cutbacks unscathed. As William Henderson, the executive director of the MTA’s Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee said to The Times, “I would never bet against the state taking money back from the MTA.”
Meanwhile, the MTA’s finances are precarious as it stands now. With fewer state subsidies, the agency would be thurst again into a politically-charged financial crisis. How, then, would the MTA address th? Why, by foisting into the riders through either fare hikes, service cuts or some combination of both. Michael Grynbaum explores the pain the MTA might have to suffer through:
Any loss of financing means cuts, and the authority would have to choose from a limited list of unpleasant options. Fare increases may be the least likely option. In July, the authority announced a budget with no fare increases in 2010, a reprieve that was characterized as a sort of miracle after the crisis of late spring, when a last-minute rescue plan from Albany closed a gaping shortfall.
An abrupt fare increase could be a political disaster. Still, fare increases of 7.5 percent are planned for 2011 and 2013, so a sudden loss of financing could spur an accelerated schedule. “The money has to come from someplace,” Mr. Henderson said. To make up a $100 million shortfall, the authority would have to raise fares again by roughly 2 percent, assuming no other cost-saving measures. Fares and tolls rose about 10 percent this summer.
Service cuts could also help close the gap, but even significant changes rarely amount to big savings. Removing nearly 300 station agents from the subways last month saved $5.7 million. Overnight closing of four downtown stations on the N line would save $390,000; eliminating the W train would save $3 million; and closing the Z line and shortening the M would save $2.4 million, according to authority projections in March, when those closings were being considered.
Paterson’s office claimed that the budget cuts would not leave the MTA in an untenable financial situation, but a spokesman noted the across-the-board impact of the state deficit. “Whether it’s the state government, or the city government, or the MTA,” Matt Anderson, an Albany spokesman said to The Times, “everyone has to manage reductions in resources responsibly to maintain their credit rating.”
And so we are left right back where we started the year — or the decade. The state is going to try to further reduce the money it sends to the MTA, and an agency straining to meet ridership demand for service is going to see its budget slashed further. We need a true commitment to mass transit funding, and as the state may be in fiscal straits, the MTA will suffer for it.
When plans for the current iteration of the Second Ave. Subway were first unveiled, the MTA opted against making the SAS a four-track line with express service. Only at 72nd St. would there be a third track, and that track, 
