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Cash Strapped MTA Considers Budget Cuts, Fare Hike

NEW YORK (CBS) ― The MTA had some bad news and then some worse news for beleaguered straphangers. The cash strapped agency is considering a one-two punch of program cuts and a fare hike.

It doesn't matter whether you take the subway, ride a bus or use one of the MTA's nine bridges and tunnels, you are facing an uppercut to the jaw from the agency.

The economy has dealt the agency a bad hand. The agency's income from the mortgage tax is down 43 percent, to $28 million - the steepest decline in 18 years. Income from assorted other taxes is down 66 percent, to $52 million - the biggest drop in 21 years.

"We are really approaching a time of reckoning," said MTA Executive Director Eliot Sander.

On Monday, the agency proposed $2.4 billion in program "deferrals," some of which included:

• 19 subway stations won't be rehabilitiated.
• The Henry Hudson bridge toll plaza will forgo an $18 million face lift.
• 102 articulated double-long buses won't be bought.

"There will be more crimbling stations that time has forgotten and they're going to do a lot of cuts in the infrastructure that you don't see but really matter, like fans to blow out smoke through the tunnels and tunnel lighting," said Gene Russianoff of the Straphangers Campaign.

"If the trends continue we will be facing a deficit of more than $500 million," said Sander.

Russianoff added, "I think we have a real problem and we're looking to Governor Paterson and Mayor Bloomberg and the legislative leaders to come rescue the 8 million people who use the system. It's tough to do in a tough economy."

The agency is pinning its hopes on the Blue Ribbon Ravitch Commission empaneled by Paterson to come up with a plan to fund the MTA. Its report is expected around Thanksgiving, and might require a number of tough choices from the legislature.

Station improvements such as paint jobs and signal upgrades may be cut. However, straphangers in Manhattan and Brooklyn would bear the brunt of the cutbacks.

"We're being squeezed from the gas to the MTA to everything," said Cheryl Miller from the Upper West Side.

"I personally feel the MTA is making too much money as it is, cause it is going to keep raising prices and everything is still going to stay the same,  like, they're not going to improve the subways," Kew Gardens resident Matthew Brooks said.

News of the proposed budget cuts are just another bad note in what's turning out to be a rather depressing tune. The MTA is already considering a fare hike for the second consecutive year.

"Everything you now got to pay for is going up anyway. MTA rides, all of that is a problem," said Bed-Stuy resident Atika Greene.

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