Two New York groups working on issues affecting the tightly squeezed working and middle classes have teamed up again to promote a message: Halt the Hike! The Straphangers’ Campaign and The Working Families Party recently re-launched HaltTheHike.org, a website where New York transit riders can call on Gov. Paterson and Mayor Bloomberg to increase city and state financial aid to the MTA. Without additional funds from the city and state, the MTA will be forced to raise more revenue through fare and toll increases. The agency is scaling back many of its costs, but that alone will not free up the sums of money needed to fix, maintain, and grow the system.
Bus, subway, and commuter rail riders should expect and demand that elected officials stop shifting blame to the MTA and help get the system out of this mess. The onus is especially heavy on the NY State Legislature, which threw away $354 million federal dollars for improved and expanded transit service and $500 million in annual revenue when it buried congestion pricing in April.
Why shouldn’t the riders have to pay more if it costs more for the ride? Not raising the fares is almost in the same category as the idea of suspending the gas tax because the price of gas went up. Of course the gas tax may be too low and that is going to be in serious trouble as fuel economy takes hold and more so if bio-diesel and electric cars become widely practical.