Earlier this month, Westchester County’s Bee-Line bus system joined the ranks of transit agencies seeking fare increases after County Executive Andrew Spano released the proposed 2008 budget, which calls for a 25-cent increase in the cash fare to $2. More than half of Bee-Line rides are paid via MetroCard (which finally came to Bee-Line in April – see MTR # 555), meaning that many Bee-Line riders were already looking at potential fare increases. Westchester transit users are also getting hit by what looks to be a 3.85% increase in Metro-North fares.
As with Long Island Bus, Bee-Line funding is set in an annual tug of war between the state and county. The agency enacted a major fare hike and was forced to cut service in 2004 (see MTR #s 400, 447). Since then, increased funding from both the state and county have allowed the agency to up service in recent years. Thankfully, this trend will continue next year, as the 2008 county budget increases assistance to Bee-Line by about $6 million.
This does not mean a fare hike is justifiable. According to the Westchester Budget Office, the fare hike would increase Bee-Line revenues by just $500,000 — the equivalent of a property tax increase of about 0.1%. The fare hike would hit those who can least afford it; according to the Journal News, most Bee-Line riders earn less than $30,000 annually.
The larger structural problem for suburban bus systems like the Bee-Line is that they have no stable, dedicated funding sources. A stable funding agreement between the state, suburban counties like Westchester and Nassau, and the MTA could be brokered by the creation of a regional bus agency under the auspices of the MTA. Such an agency would also be better able to coordinate routes and could provide the institutional capacity to support more efforts like Westchester DOT’s planned Central Avenue bus rapid transit route.
Westchester’s proposed budget can be reviewed online here; the next public hearing on the budget will take place tonight at 7 pm at the Mount Kisco elementary school on 47 W. Hyatt Ave. The county legislature will vote on the budget on December 10.
UPDATED: Another budget hearing will be held on Dec. 5 at 7 pm in White Plains, in the Legislative Chamber, 8th Floor – Michaelian Office Building, 148 Martine Avenue.
If the Brodsky-Brennan bill to end the State’s practice of borrowing money from the downstate Metropolitan Mass Transportation Operating Assistance Fund were to pass, the Bee Line system along with Long Island Bus would be eligibe for additional funding from the revenue from downstate MTA-region special taxes (the sales tax and corporate income tax surcharge). Since 2001 the Governor and the State Legislature have diverted this downstate money to fund other State transportation assistance obligations (18-b program).
[…] be made up by increased MetroCard revenue due to the MTA’s fare hike, or by the county, which increased Bee-Line aid by about $6 million in its recently passed 2008 […]