MTA

Today, for the first time, New Yorkers braved the morning rush using our new, diminished transit system. With more than a dozen bus lines discontinued over the weekend, dozens more running less frequently, and subway service changes forcing straphangers to cope with longer rides and more crowded platforms, no one expects an orderly transition.

"Deal Saves Student Metrocards" proclaims the New York Times. "Ride on!" blares the Post. There's just one catch: There isn't really a deal.

Faced with a budget gap of nearly $800 million, the MTA Board voted to approve a slate of service cuts this afternoon that will affect millions of New Yorkers. The cuts are slated to start taking effect in June. Unless elected officials intervene to close the MTA's deficit, subway and bus riders will have to contend with less frequent service, more transfers, longer walks to the bus, and worse crowding on platforms and trains.

Earlier this month we described how Albany made off with more than 100 million dollars in dedicated transit taxes that should have gone to the MTA, using revenues collected from the New York City region to plug the statewide deficit. So we wondered, what's happening to the state's other transit authorities? It turns out that not only are upstate transit agencies still receiving subsidies from the state's general fund, they get a portion of the MTA's dedicated taxes too.

New York City high school students met with MTA Chair Jay Walder yesterday afternoon for a much-anticipated discussion of how to continue the MTA's student fare program. The meeting itself was closed to the media, but at a press conference that followed, both parties described their face-to-face as more of a strategy session than a confrontation.

When the state of New York announced in December that it would slice $143 million from the MTA operating budget, it may have seemed like a belt-tightening measure for lean times. But the truth of the matter -- which often goes unstated, unreported, and unappreciated -- is more insidious.

The MTA roadshow is in full swing, with raucous public hearings on service cuts drawing hundreds in Queens and Staten Island last night. Some press outlets are questioning whether the hearings actually get anything accomplished. It's a good question to chew on, since the MTA Board's options are limited by the agency's massive budget gap.

So it's come to this. With transit revenues plummeting to the point where the MTA has to deal with a $400 million shortfall on top of an austerity plan that already calls for deep cuts in service, Governor Paterson yesterday proposed shifting the burden of the MTA payroll tax to fall heavily on New York City businesses. The idea is to tax city payrolls at .54 percent and suburban payrolls at .17 percent, skewing the flat .34 percent rate established last spring.

When Albany slapped a Band-Aid over the MTA budget hole last spring, no one except the architects of the plan pretended that the transit system was actually on sound financial footing. As yet another day of reckoning approaches, lawmakers continue to go to bizarre extremes to avoid admitting that their slipshod funding package has failed.