(The following story by Judy Rife appeared on the Times Herald-Record website on March 10, 2010.)
MIDDLETOWN, N.Y. — South of the border, the names and numbers are different, but the story is the same: growing deficit, lower ridership, higher costs, less state aid.
And so, NJ Transit’s new executive director, Jim Weinstein, on the job for only two months, announced he would freeze spending, raise fares 25 percent, slash bus, train and light rail service, lay off 200 people, trim executive salaries by 5 percent and reduce contributions to employee 401(k) accounts by 33 percent.
“These are extremely painful steps, but unavoidable ones,” said Weinstein, pointing out that New Jersey’s own $11 billion deficit precludes turning to Trenton for a bailout.
The proposed fare increase, the first since 2007, would translate into only $14 more a month for the Secaucus, N.J.-to-New York Penn Station portion of her Metro-North ticket from Salisbury Mills/Cornwall, but it’s still too much for Dina Cavazza.
“To want to take from me over and over is going to put me, and others, in jeopardy,” the Cornwall resident said. “Who gives them the right to make everyone pay for their money problems?”
MTA already hiked NY taxes, fees
Cavazza framed her reaction in the context of the New York state Legislature’s and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s actions during the past year. The state bailout not only cost her 10 percent more for her Metro-North ticket but also imposed a new payroll tax on her business and new motor vehicle fees on her family’s cars.
The bailout, however, wasn’t enough to offset subsequent cuts in state aid and now the MTA is laying off 1,000 employees and moving to cut transit services midyear to offset a $700 million deficit that’s materialized since December.
But some New Jersey commuters, like Scott Petretta of Wayne, N.J., prefer fare increases and service cuts to higher property or state income taxes to cover the $300 million shortfall in NJ Transit’s 2010-11 budget.
“I agree with the fare increase,” said Petretta in an e-mail. “NJ Transit offers good service and the governor (newly elected Chris Christie) is correct when he says, ‘Money doesn’t grow on trees.'”
Petretta added that he’d like to see free passes given to people receiving unemployment benefits to use in their search for new jobs.
Zoe Baldwin, the New Jersey advocate for the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, said Weinstein’s plan is a “stop-gap solution for the real crisis, a broke transportation fund that is overburdened with debt.”
The campaign, which has been pressing the MTA to use federal stimulus funds to the extent allowed to avoid service cuts, wants New Jersey to increase its famously low gas tax to raise money for transit, as well as highways and bridges.