The Metropolitan Transportation Authority board will likely hold hearings this fall for a 2005 budget that includes fare increases and service cuts that would take effect early in 2005. The agency released its 2005 preliminary hearing at its board meeting Thursday.

It shows a $436 million gap, driven in part by heavy debt service payments on prior capital programs. The gap projection has indeed come down somewhat in recent weeks due to better-than-anticipated receipts for taxes dedicated to transit operations. However, it remains considerable, and is slated to balloon to $1 billion in 2006. The "gap closing actions" listed here would yield a budget $31 million in the black by 2005’s end, according to the MTA:

Monthly NYC fare card— up $6

Weekly NYC fare card—up $3

NYC express buses—$2 fare hike, to $6

Commuter rail fares up about 5%

25-50 cent bridge and tunnel toll hikes

New $1 monthly fee for E-ZPass

Close 49 full-time, 115 part-time token booths

Off peak bus cuts

Shorten weekend and night G-train service

Eliminate conductors on the G and L lines

Cut some night LIRR service and call off planned commuter rail service increases

Reduce commuter rail train and station cleaning

Internal administrative "belt tightening"

The 2006 $1 billion-in-the-red doomsday scenario could trigger more radical steps, like closing some LIRR branches, according to Newsday.

The 2005 budget would not affect the $2 base fare or the 6-for-5 bulk fare purchase. Use of the one-day "fun pass" had been all but wiped out by the $3, 42% hike (to $7) imposed on it by the MTA in 2003, and its price would not increase under the plan released yesterday. The one-day card accounted for about 5% of fare sales prior to the 2003 increase, but is around 1% now.

The MTA said the average NYC fare would rise from $1.26 to $1.33. Still, the rise in the monthly fare pass from 2002 to 2005 would be significant — 20.6% from the $63 cost before the 2003 fare increase to the proposed $76 in 2005. The weekly pass would see a 41% hike over the same period, from $17 to $24. That could trigger a shift from the weekly to the monthly cards. Monthly cards account for about 27% of NYC Transit fare sales now.

The Straphangers Campaign called on Governor Pataki and Mayor Bloomberg to step up and find the money to stave off fare hikes and service cuts, and to fund the 2005-2009 transit capital program. Straphangers pointed out that the absence of any state government contribution to the MTA’s current capital program drove the MTA to record levels of borrowing. That debt is now rebounding on transit riders in the form of a high level of debt service in each year’s MTA operating budget.

Straphangers’ Gene Russianoff testified: "The MTA’s interest payments on the bonds are doubling — from $800 million in 2003 to $1.6 billion in 2007. That's the leading cause of looming deficits and threats of service cuts and fare hikes."

Russianoff also noted that Mayor Bloomberg has cut $90 million in city aid to the current MTA capital program, leaving the city at its smallest level of aid for fixing the subways in at least 25 years.  The mayor is also pressing the MTA to hand over valuable land above the West Side yards for the Jets/Olympic stadium "so football fans can have luxury boxes with views of the Hudson River." 

Bloomberg largely sat out the 2003 fare hike, declining to criticize the MTA or offer an alternative financing plan. He may be less inclined to do so this time around, since fares went up just last year and he faces reelection in 2005. His MTA board appointees voted against holding budget hearings, and he made several statements since Thursday urging the MTA to look elsewhere for revenue. But the mayor did not comment on the capital program or city contributions to transit.

The fare increase would be the third under Governor Pataki’s MTA leadership. The governor has not developed any new non-fare revenue sources for mass transit, though his implementation of free bus-subway and discounted MetroCards reduced fares in the mid-1990s.

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