(The following article by Joshua Robin and Joie Tyrell was posted on Newsday.com on April 1.)
NEW YORK — MTA officials will meet next week – and Long Island Rail Road riders may not be happy when they’re done.
That’s when the authority will start searching for possible cuts should the Metropolitan Transportation Authority fail to close its yawning deficits.
“While we made some progress in reducing those gaps, we still face significant problems,” MTA Executive Director Katherine Lapp told board members at an authority meeting yesterday.
Lapp didn’t specify what will be on the guillotine when she huddles next week with executives of NYC Transit, Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North. She would only say that they would look for “internal efficiencies and other measures” to close a 2005 gap of $540 million that could grow past $1 billion in 2006.
The agency has previously floated raising the costs of discounted MetroCards – but not the $2 base fare – to save money. The MTA raised LIRR fares by 25 percent earlier this year and the subway fare to $2.
Peter Haynes, president of the advocacy group, the LIRR Commuters Campaign, said he wouldn’t be surprised if the MTA targeted LIRR discounts, too. LIRR Mail & Ride customers now can receive a monthly MetroCard and 9 percent discount on LIRR fare.
“If they add service cuts into it, it seems to me the LIRR is going to end up in a death spiral between losing customers, raising prices and cutting services,” he said.
The bleak announcement yesterday appeared as an attempt to spur the state and city to pony up more money to offset the MTA’s deficits. Initial state and city budgets don’t boost funding any higher than this year, when both subsidized MTA $158 million each.
The MTA’s gaps are due to riding debt service on bonds, plus rising pension, benefit and employee health costs.
Gov. George Pataki and Mayor Michael Bloomberg made no promises of more money. “We’re going to work with the MTA and we’re confident that they will look at ways to further improve efficiencies in order to avoid service cuts,” said Lynn Rasic, a spokeswoman for Gov. George Pataki.