Fare hikes expected!

 Posted by Nick at 3:17 pm  MTA
Jul 282010
 

MTA board has authorized public hearings on fare and toll hikes that could hit in January as well as layoffs.  Expected is the 30-Day unlimited-ride Metro Card would increase from $89 to $99 and would be limited to 90 trips with an extra $5 for no limits. There could be a $1 fee for new Metro Cards if not using refill option. It costs $0.07 to produce a MTA fare card. The single ride fare would increase to $2.50 for one-way subway rides.  By the way, MTA Chairman Jay Walder is paid $350,000 a year, receives pension payments and a housing allowance.  My recent blog pointed out the story by Greg Mocker of WPIX News that Diana Jones Ritter is starting a new position with the MTA on July 16 to oversee cost-cutting and restructuring at the MTA. She’ll be paid $217,000 a year.  The MTA web site always has other high paying employment positions. What about layoffs at the top not the bottom? What about just making the system not suck? The next you are jammed into a packed subway train and hear “train traffic”, “stalled train”, “late train”, etc…what will you think about fare increases.

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  • Nick

    The latest MTA plan includes eliminating daily and 14-day unlimited Metro Cards, reducing the pay-per-ride bonus from 15 percent to 7 percent. The MTA board reviewed more service cuts that will make the subway system even worse (if possible), less cleaning on escalators and subway tracks, (garbage leads to fires….more delays… and more subway mascots — rats), less security guards at busy transit hubs and cutting work on grouting — which means more leaks and mold. “Mayor” Bloomberg said “the MTA didn’t have any choice….I hope it’s enough… I don’t want them (MTA) to come back in another year and say it’s still not enough…The state keeps cutting them back.”

  • Robert Segarra

    Is Mayor Bloomberg an ineffective leader or what? The residents of NYC have to dig deeper into their already stretched out pockets to come up with more money to pay higher fares for an abysmal trip in the slow, filthy, dangerous and miserable New York City Subway system, and all he can say is, “the MTA didn’t have any choice” – Is he ridiculous or what? The MTA is ill run and corrupt, and it needs to be replaced with something that works!

    Listen up, people, turn off your iPods for a moment. Hang up the phone. I am going to say this one more time. We can make changes…but we can’t make them merely by complaining…especially to each other…we need to complain to those who can make the changes that we are looking for. Action speaks louder than words. If people would just one time hold our elected leaders accountable by voting them out of office the first time they didn’t work in our best interests, more of them would fall in line and do what they are supposed to do for us, rather than give us lip service and pretend that they are as powerless as we have come to believe we are. But we are not powerless. We elect leaders and legislators to create our laws and uphold them. But these are OUR laws, and we have a say in them as well. If we want a better quality of life, then we’d better speak up! We’d better vote! And we’d better vote for those who understand that if they do not give us what we want, that they will indeed be voted out next time around. Power is intoxicating. Our leaders are addicted to it. If they realized how easily we could remove this stimulant from them, there’s no telling what we could inspire them to do for us. But we need to vote. And we need to remember that change is not a bad thing! If things are not working out, a breath of fresh air is always helpful.

  • Brian Hedden

    So Robert, if you think the MTA is so corrupt, how would you fix the system without raising fares or cutting service? I’m making you MTA Chairman and CEO for a day. OK? Go. Remember, you’re not starting with a blank slate. Your predecessors as far back as the Cuomo Administration have been funding the capital budget on credit, and that credit is now due. With interest. Also, the state government just passed a new payroll tax for you (yay!), but they told you at the last minute they lied about how much money it would make for you (boo!). They also cut your general subsidy and most of the money they give you for student transportation.

    OK? Go. Oh, don’t forget, an arbitrator just mandated pay raises for union employees, and state law requires you to award construction contracts to the lowest bidder, even if everybody, their brother, and their dog can tell that contractor is wildly incompetent. And you should probably forfeit your salary, I think it is just enough money to bring back overnight service on one bus line. Or maybe it isn’t, I’m only factoring in bus driver salaries, not gas or maintenance.

    OK, you’re Chairman for a day. Go!

    P.S. Everyone hates you today, because you’re the Chairman of the MTA. Hope that won’t be a problem.

  • BXcheer

    Bureacracy at it’s worst= inneficiency, disorganization, red tape, misappropriated $$ and may I dare say sleazy palm greasin?? que? Whether you like it or not the trains have to keep on a rollin otherwise the city economy will sink deeper into the shithole……

  • Nick

    How about cutting payroll not adding to it! The New York Post has reported that the MTA payroll jumped by $70 million in 2009. Is has also been reported the MTA is spending $34 million on overtime paid to workers on vacation, out sick or on holiday and a senior accounting analyst earned $228,000 on a $72,100 salary. . On Saturday there is a 2 million dollar trip to Great Adventure amusement park. But yet MTA has a mega-million dollar deficit. Riders must feel they are paying for wasteful spending… According to the New York Post, with the fare hikes and zero union raises, the MTA will have a $67 million surplus in 2011. Will Walder waste the surplus? Or will his new $217,000 hire Diana Jones Ritter manage the money wisely? Governor Paterson once said “Don’t grade on degree of difficulty but on what I get done”…some logic applies to Walder!

  • Robert Segarra

    Hey Brian! The issues currently plaguing the MTA and the NYC subway system are not new. They have taken decades and more to fester into what we now can proudly claim is one of the worst run systems of any major world class city. For too long the public has accepted fare increases as business as usual, when it really isn’t. These increases have nothing to do with inflation or cost of living, but instead to mismanagement and corruption.

    And so, simply stated, it took us many years to get into the mess we are in, and it is going to take us many years to get out of it. But we need to start somewhere, and we need to start sometime. Why not now?

    When Mayor Bloombag went to war against the Board Of Education, he basically did to that agency what we need to do with the MTA. (Though I am not saying that the mayor has had any real success with the educational system in NYC. There have been reports of “grade” manipulation, but that’s an argument for another day. I’m just saying that we need to start fresh.) The MTA needs to be dismantled and rebuilt from the ground up. But first we need to make sure that we keep the trains running, in order to keep one of the most vibrant work forces and it’s city moving.

    In order to keep fares down and the trains and buses moving, we can tap into emergecny funds that had been allocated to NYC for security. Other cities have done the same thing in order to close essential gaps in their budgets. Why can’t NYC do the same? It would only be used for the time being, and it would be a one time thing.

    Many of the other bloggers posting to this site have also made some great points. We need to cut waste. We need to cut the illegal overtime. We need to cut exorbitant pay for MTA executives. We need to cut free rides for former employees for life. I mean, the incidents of inappropriate and wasteful acts committed by the MTA and MTA workers is probably too long to list.

    Ultimately the MTA is going to need an independent “watchdog” during its dismantling and rehabilitation in order to ensure that this never happens again. But it is clear that the problems at the MTA began with greed and money, and they will need to be resolved by focusing on these same issues.

    As for being a hated man for the day, well, all I can say is, I’m used to it. I was once voted “most likely to be voted a very hated MTA chairman in some future blog site” in my yearbook by classmates who also hated me back then. But if I all my efforts could get the trains here in NYC running on time, and for an affordable fare, then all the hate would have been worth it! Everybody hate on!

  • Dan M

    These so called over educated idiots on the management team of the MTA need to take a big paycut! The MTA taking away the day pass already sucks and now limiting the monthly pass to a set amount of rides is just totally stupid. One day the system will shut down because it’s to dam old, can’t balance the budget and managed by people who smoke to much crack. Chicago is looking even better now, the tranist system in New York is going to hell.

  • Natalie G

    Robert, aka Oh Wise One, why, in your opinion, has no politician ever thought to go after the MTA, as you propose?

  • Robert Segarra

    Hmm, good question. My thoughts on why specifically no politician has ever taken it upon him or herself to go after the MTA is simply because doing so would become an extremely demanding and an all encompassing quest. It would be all that this politician would ever be doing during their term in office. I think the mess at the MTA has grown so exponentially out of control, and I don’t know if this was accidental or deliberate, that fixing the problem would literally consume whomever decided to go after it. But rest assured, anyone who did manage to get the MTA back under control would be looked at as a folk hero to many, not only in NYC, but around the country. He or she would gain the trust and appreciation of everyone who ever rode mass transit anywhere.

   
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