BY KERRY BURKE , REUVEN BLAU
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Published: Monday, April 27, 2015, 11:23 PM
Updated: Tuesday, April 28, 2015, 9:44 AM
- A
- A
- A
TODD MAISEL FOR NEW YORK DAILY NEWSSingle rides can jump to as high as $3.15 if the state Legislature does not bail out the MTA.
Straphangers, start saving now.
Millions of commuters could soon get hit with a 15% fare and toll hike if the state Legislature doesn’t bail out the debt-ridden agency, a top transit official warned Monday.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s $32 billion, five-year capital budget plan to pay for serious fixes and updates is only half-funded.
If the agency has to borrow funds to cover the full cost, riders could be the ones footing the bill, said MTA Chief Financial Officer Robert Foran.
A potential 15% spike in subway fares could cause a monthly MetroCard, now $116.50, to rise to $134 and single rides to jump from $2.75 to as high as $3.15.
“Oh, no, they’re not!” said Tiffany Taylor, a letter carrier from the Bronx.
BRYAN SMITH, TODD MAISEL FOR NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
“Service is worse than it’s ever been. My salary isn’t increasing. How am I going to pay for my daily card? What are we getting for another fare increase?”
MTA board member Jeffrey Kay said Monday at the group’s finance committee hearing that the state agency’s looming debt crisis, “is a freight train coming at us.”
“We have a $32 billion problem. We don’t have a seat at the table. We have no choice but to then act on one thing only, which is by increasing the fares.”
Foran and other transit officials stressed that it is still just a hypothetical scenario.
“Our CFO was describing what size fare increase could generate the debt service to cover roughly $15 billion,” said MTA spokesman Adam Lisberg.
“It was a hypothetical statement about math. It was explicitly not a statement about what the board is contemplating.”
Drivers could also get socked with hiked bridge tolls to make up the capital budget shortfall.
Gov. Cuomo has called the capital plan “bloated” and has not detailed how the state plans to fund it.
Cuomo spokeswoman Beth DeFalco said that “the MTA received more than $1 billion from this year’s budget to help with its capital needs, including funding to provide unprecedented public transportation access to Bronx residents. Work on the MTA capital plan is continuing with all stakeholders.”
But transit advocates said that’s not enough.
“If Albany doesn’t come through, the riders are going to take it on the chin,” said Gene Russianoff, spokesman for the Straphangers Campaign.
The capital budget is used to pay for everything from new trains to countdown clocks to big-ticket items such as construction on the Second Ave. subway line.
ROBERT MECEA FOR NEW YORK DAILY NEWSThe Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s $32 billion, five-year capital budget plan is only half-funded.
“If we are not able to keep building our tracks and repairing our buses, much less expanding for future growth, the system will start to degrade,” Lisberg said.
The older buses and trains are more likely to breakdown and cause delays, records show.
The fleet’s creakiest cars on the C line averaged only 58,397 miles before having to be fixed in part due to their age. Some were bought for the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair.
By contrast, the MTA’s newest cars — built between 2005 and 2010 and serving the E line — traveled 378,346 miles before needing repairs.
