One local analysis predicts NYC Transit will lose over 50 million riders over the next year with subway and bus fares at $1.50, with a minimum increase of 40,000 extra daily car trips in the five boroughs.

Grasping at straws after being heavily saddled with the blame for last week's MTA board vote to raise transit fares, the Pataki Administration is muttering about breaking up the MTA. But it escapes us how decentralizing control over the MTA's various operating divisions would help reduce costs from frequently reported duplicative administrative functions like separate personnel departments and law offices. State Senator Norman Levy, head of the Senate's Transportation Committee, said it would make more sense to bring additional transportation agencies and functions under one roof, so that the coordinated, rational transportation policy that has long eluded downstate New York might stand a fighting chance. Levy also said he would consider legislation requiring the Governor, Mayor and county executives to represent themselves on the MTA board, and thereby be held accountable for transit policies. With that change, we might no longer have to witness scenes like Governor Pataki scratching his head, saying a fare hike was a bad idea, while his MTA chief and board members unanimously approve the biggest fare increase in the subway system's history. "If the elected officials served themselves on the board...and had a track record like this, they would have been defeated at the ballot box and driven out of the state," Levy told the NY Post.

The Village Voice reported this week on Pataki Administration transportation priorities. In recent months, the Governor has sent four letters to Washington expressing concern over on transportation issues: One was to the House Budget Committee urging Amtrak funding, another was to Senator Moynihan in support of Penn Station renovation, a third on behalf of the National Highway System bill, and the final letter to the Senate Appropriations Committee, prior to its September conference with the House. Concerns expressed in that letter were Penn Station funding, restoration of the Staten Island Ferry terminal, and high speed rail research. On the table was an almost 50% cut of federal transit operating assistance, but Pataki never mentioned it (never mind New York City -- Rochester is now in the throes of a major transit fare increase due to expected federal cuts). The Federal Transit Administration said it had not heard from Albany on transit issues at all. Mayor Giuliani's D.C. lobbyist has raised federal transit assistance issues, but has not made it a strong priority.