(The White Plains Journal News posted the following article by Caren Halbfinger on its website on June 11.)
NEW YORK — The Metropolitan Transportation Authority defended its procedures for raising fares and tolls yesterday before an appeals court, while advocates for bus, subway, railroad riders and motorists argued that the agency had violated its own rules.
At stake are millions of dollars that could continue to flow to the MTA, or be put back in riders’ and motorists’ pockets.
Lawyers for the Straphangers Campaign, a transit riders group, and the Automobile Club of New York, told a five-judge panel at the Appellate Division of state Supreme Court that decisions to roll back bus, subway and commuter rail fares, along with bridge and tunnel tolls, should be upheld. The lawyers argued that the MTA lied to the public by overstating its deficit by two-thirds in notices announcing the public hearings, and by understating its cash surplus by $500,000. The Straphangers Campaign and automobile club sued the MTA in separate actions last month.
Had the public known the truth, they argued, the debate would have been more vigorous at the 10 public hearings held before the MTA board voted in March to increase the fares and tolls.
Judges in both cases ordered that the fare and toll increases be rolled back and that riders be refunded their money. Any change in fares or tolls is on hold until the appeals process is completed.
The advocates said the MTA should be ordered to hold a new set of public hearings on the fare and toll increases and token booth closings, after it has provided the public with an accurate accounting of its finances, including disclosing all the available cash.
“All we’re asking the MTA to do is follow their own procedure,” said state Sen. Eric Schneiderman, a lawyer for the Straphangers Campaign.
The MTA argued it “didn’t provide all the details, but it provided the essentials,” said Stephen Kaye, an attorney representing the nation’s largest transit agency. The agency had no obligation to identify its available cash, he said.
“If the function of this was to inform, why couldn’t this have been done in clear and understandable language?” asked Justice Betty Weinberg Ellerin.
“Had the MTA gone into greater detail, it would have caused confusion,” Kaye responded, explaining that the MTA had no legal requirement to present the public with all the available alternatives.
The Straphangers Campaign also argues that the MTA should be barred from closing 62 token booths later this year for similar reasons.
The toll hikes raised bus and subway fares from $1.50 to $2 on May 4 and increased Metro-North Railroad and Long Island Rail Road fares by an average of 25 percent on May 1.
The 140-minute arguments inside a packed courtroom followed a rally outside attended by 100 supporters of the Straphangers Campaign and the Fight the Hike Coalition, along with union officials from Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union, which also sued the MTA.
The Straphangers argued that the notices announcing the hearings, which were posted in subways, train stations and on buses in February, were defective because they asked the public to help close a $2 billion budget gap, when the MTA already had reduced its deficit to $951 million two months earlier. The Automobile Club of New York yesterday made similar arguments about the bridge and tunnel toll hikes, which took effect May 18 at the nine crossings the MTA controls and range from 25 cents to $1.
The state appellate court decision is likely within the next two weeks. No change in the fare is likely until a final court decision is reached, and if the judicial panel is split 3-2, either side could appeal this court’s decision to the Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court.