(Newsday posted the following article on its website on May 10.)
NEW YORK — The city’s $2 subway and bus fare should stay safe through at least 2008, along with ticket prices on Metro-North and the Long Island Rail Road and tolls at the bridges and tunnels run by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, according to a state report released Wednesday.
Estimates by the office of Comptroller Alan Hevesi showed the MTA could end 2006 with a cash balance of $533 million _ $316 million more than the agency’s current financial plan indicates. The extra money would more than cover a 5 percent fare and toll hike by the MTA in 2007, a move that would generate an extra $241 million.
The majority of the extra money comes from taxes on real estate transactions, Hevesi said. And the MTA wound up 2005 with $58 million more than anticipated, money that was rolled over into this year, he said.
MTA Executive Director Katherine Lapp said her agency would “take under advisement” the call by Hevesi to forgo increases in 2007. “Our responsibility is to develop a long-term budget plan to maintain a cost-effective, safe and reliable transportation network,” she said.
In addition to overseeing the city’s mass transit system, the MTA is responsible for the Metro-North and LIRR commuter rail lines and an assortment of city bridges and tunnels, including the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, the Triborough Bridge, the Throgs Neck Bridge, the Queens Midtown Tunnel and the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel.
In spite of the good news for next year, Hevesi warned that the MTA faces very large budget gaps beginning in 2008. The comptroller said the MTA needs to devise a strategy that would close the gap by the time of its July financial plan.