CITIZEN ACTION OF NEW YORK
JOBS WITH JUSTICE
NYPIRG STRAPHANGERS CAMPAIGN
TRANSPORT WORKERS UNION LOCAL 100

RIDERS, WORKERS TO FIGHT $2 FARE,
‘RAW DEAL’ IN FUNDING FOR SUBWAYS AND BUSES

GROUPS ARGUE FOR RENEWED STATE, CITY SUPPORT TO STAVE OFF
ROUND OF TRANSIT HIKES AND CUTS IN 2003

Joined at City Hall kick-off event by elected officials

A coalition of unions, community groups and transit organizations – joined by dozens of elected officials – kicked off a Save the Fare campaign at a City Hall news conference today.

The groups called on state and city leaders to prevent a fare hike – which Mayor Bloomberg has said could increase the fare to $2.00 – by finding new sources of revenue to fill a $660 million budget gap at the MTA. (See full list of groups and officials, attached.)

The gap emerged not because of dramatically higher costs for labor or greatly increased service but because New York State stopped funding the MTA’s capital program starting in 1995, according to studies by the City Independent Budget Office and others. That move forced the MTA to sell billions of dollars in bonds, with interest payments on the debt growing starting in 2003.

“There’s a false presumption that the only way to balance the transit budget is on the backs of working people, whether they be riders or transit workers,” said Roger Toussaint, president of TWU Local 100. “We’re here to say that the state and city must adopt other, fairer ways to fund transit,” said Toussaint.

Toussaint and other participants highlighted several key facts that they said support their view that city transit riders are getting a raw deal:

• City subway and buses move 84% of the state’s transit riders, but the city transit system gets only about 63% of state aid for transit, leaving a shortfall of $325 million annually.
• New York City riders pay nearly 60% of the cost of running the subway and bus system, while the national average is about 40%;
• Ridership on city subways and buses is at its highest level since 1953, with more than seven million daily riders. But while subway ridership has increased 29% since 1996, service is up only 11%. On the buses, there are 722 million daily rides – a 50% increase from 435 million riders in 1996 – while service has increased only 27%.

“Riders who now battle for a little breathing space on overcrowded trains and buses shouldn’t have to pay more for the privilege,” said Neysa Pranger, the coordinator of NYPIRG Straphangers Campaign.

In the 1980s, the State of New York funded the transit capital plan far more generously, the coalition noted.

Of $5.5 billion in government funding in the current five-year MTA program, five billion – or 91% -- is from the federal government. The rest – about $530 million – comes from the city, while none comes directly from the State of New York.

But in the 1982-86 plan – the first of the rebuilding, the state funded $1.5 billion – or 36% -- of the $4.2 billion in government funding. Federal funds made up two billion dollars – or almost 47% of the total, while the city funded $688 million, or about 17%.

“If New York State made the same commitment to fix the system that it made in the 1980s, the MTA wouldn’t be facing huge debt and we wouldn’t be facing an unfair fare hike,” said Thomas Wheatly of Jobs with Justice.

“A fare hike is a tax hike on those who can least afford it,” he added.

“All New Yorkers deserve affordable and accessible transit – and a 50-cent fare hike would put the cost of a MetroCard or token out of the reach of many city residents,” said Susan Stetzer, transit campaign organizer for Citizens Action of New York. Her group, along with Jobs with Justice and the Straphangers Campaign, has taken a lead role in organizing the campaign.

So far, 61 community and city-wide groups have joined the coalition, with 18 attending the news conference.

The coalition expects to propose several funding options over the coming weeks that would spread the transit funding burden more fairly, he added.

Save the Fare activities planned for the campaign include several in-the-subways voter registration drives, including a Transit Voter day in transit hubs throughout all five boroughs on Thursday, September 26th. TWU Local 100 and NYPIRG Straphangers Campaign also will post ads in 2,000 subway cars in October, hand out hundreds of thousands of leaflets and open a website, www.savethefare.org.

Coalition members also are circulating a sign-on letter for elected officials to send to Mayor Bloomberg and Governor Pataki. (See letter, attached.)

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