(The Associated Press circulated the following article on November 30.)
NEW YORK — The agency running city buses and subways said it won’t raise fares in 2007, crediting a booming real estate market for helping it to a $938 million surplus for the year.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority revised a budget issued earlier this year that had called for a fare hike in 2007 and another increase in 2009. More than 7 million riders take city buses and subways; no increases are planned on the agency’s Metro-North Railroad and Long Island Rail Road commuter lines, either.
The budget must be approved at a final vote scheduled for December.
The agency said it benefited from major real estate sales in its service area, including $52 million it received as a percentage of the $5.4 billion sale of the Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village apartment complex this fall. State and city taxes allow the transit agency to collect percentages of major real estate transactions in the metropolitan area.
The agency last raised one-way fares in 2003, from $1.50 to $2, and raised the prices of monthly and weekly MetroCard fare payment plans in 2005.
The agency’s executive director, Katherine Lapp, said the budget would include an additional $75 million for emergency preparedness training and other security measures, including more MTA police radios. The $52 million from the apartment complex sale will be spent painting 200 subway stations, she said.
Although the market allowed for this year’s surplus, Lapp said, the agency is looking at a $900 million deficit in 2008 and one that surpasses $1 billion in 2009.