MTA seeking hikes as service & ridership tumble

The MTA is sticking with its plan to jack up fares next year, as the agency struggles to improve subway service that has sent passengers looking elsewhere for rides, officials said Wednesday.

Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials – staring down budget deficits in 2020 and beyond – are sticking to fare and toll hikes that will net a 4% hike in revenue.

The agency plans to take in less money than it expected from riders as forecast earlier in the year – to the tune of $376 million – between 2019 and 2022.

Ridership has dropped on subway and buses – in May, there were 193,000 fewer weekday passengers on subway, bus and paratransit, down to 7.7 million a day, compared with the same month last year.

MTA board member Mitch Pally, who represents Suffolk County, said that fares have gone up by a third since 2009, when lawmakers made the agency raise fares every two years, within the rate of inflation.

“I think we all agree all of our systems are under duress,” Pally said. “It is in my opinion not the appropriate time to ask our riders for more money at this time.”

Board member Larry Schwartz, a former aide to Gov. Cuomo, who controls the MTA, wants new ways to raise money, though he suggested that Albany lawmakers won’t have any answers to that problem until after the November elections.

“What adds insult to injury is when performance sucks and you’re asking them to pay more,” Schwartz said.

MTA Chief Joe Lhota sought to spread the blame on fewer riders and paid fares, says it’s a nationwide trend for transit agencies.