New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority expects to have a “gap” in its 2008 budget of $345 million, climbing to more than $1.1 billion in 2009, nearly $2 billion in 2010, and more than $2 billion per year after that. To close the gap, it proposes to cut service, including some trains and several buses, and raise fares by 23 percent.
Does this deserve your subsidy?
Flickr photo by Jenniferrt66.
Even after these changes, it projects losses of $266 million in 2010, $454 million in 2011, and more than $600 million in 2012 (see page 18). The big problem is that the city and state of New York are both tapped out — “Neither the city nor the state has any money,” says Mayor Bloomberg. Governor David Paterson adds the state has “vast budget problems.”
