MTA Proposed Cuts

New York City

MTA Proposed Cuts

The W line may be eliminated entirely under service cuts proposed by the MTA Finance Committee to be voted on by the agency’s board of directors December 16.

The MTA Finance Committee announced its 2010 budget cuts on December 14, including plans to eliminate subway lines, bus routes and jobs. Among the changes announced are the elimination of the W and Z lines, 21 local bus routes and the shortening of the G and M lines. More than 6,000 non-union workers will receive a ten percent pay cut effective in April 2010. The cuts arose from a $400 million budget loss resulting from a $143 million cut in state funding this year with an additional $49 million in cuts expected next year and a $100 million loss in tax revenue. Another cause for the budget problems is the pay raises which the agency will have to award workers over the next three years.

“These are all direct cuts to scheduled service to the public,” MTA Chief Financial Officer Gary Dellaverson said. “There’s no reason to call them anything other than that.” The agency also announced that it will lay off about 700 workers and will eliminate free MetroCards for students in New York City public schools. Currently about 500,000 school children use the passes to get to school. As a result of the cost cutting plan students will have to pay half price fares starting next year and full fares by 2011. Students are currently eligible based on age and distance from school. The program was once fully funded by the city and state.

“This is very unfair. It will be very, very expensive,” one concerned parent said.

Board members were to vote on the budget Wednesday, December 16. All of these changes could take effect by the middle of next year.

Councilmember James Vacca (D-The Bronx) and Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn (D-Manhattan) on Tuesday joined with leading transportation advocates on the steps of City Hall to urge the MTA board to reject the latest round of service cuts. Vacca and Quinn proposed that the MTA reallocate $140 million of capital funds to close the unexpected gap in its operating budget. Additional funds would come from two sources: more than $90 million in unspent federal money that may be used for operating expenses through a congressionally sanctioned process known as “flex” and roughly $50 million in MTA operating funds that are currently being used to supplement the capital budget for a total of roughly $140 million, approximately $11 million more than the $129 million that staff and service cuts are expected to save.

“If busses and subway services are cut the way the MTA is proposing, we will be creating mass transit deserts throughout New York City, stranding hundreds of thousands of people,” Vacca said. “Once again New Yorkers are paying more and getting less.”

“We normally would not favor using capital funding towards operating expenses,” Quinn said. “Under the circumstances, however, this is the only appropriate action to take.”

The MTA’s decision to hold not a single public hearing for straphangers to voice their opinion on the proposed service cuts is meeting with much criticism and anger.

“Riders have every right to be mad as hell,” Gene Russianoff, staff attorney for the NYPIRG Straphangers Campaign said. “This is a real slap in the face. I don’t think they understand how much this shreds the MTA’s credibility.”

Public meetings on the proposed service cuts will be held early next year.