(Newsday posted the following Associated Press article on its website on April 30.)
NEW YORK — A transit riders’ group was set to file a lawsuit Wednesday seeking to block a fare hike from going into effect this week, saying the Metropolitan Transportation Authority misled the public about its finances.
Gene Russianoff, staff lawyer for the Straphangers Campaign, said Wednesday the group would seek a temporary restraining order in state Supreme Court to try to “win reconsideration of a planned fare increase.”
The lawsuit is expected to argue that the MTA “misled the public with inaccurate information about its finances, making a sham of the 10 public hearings it held last February on hiking fares,” the group said in a statement issued Wednesday morning.
Commuter rail fares are set to go up about 25 percent on Thursday, while city bus and subway fares are to rise 33 percent, from $1.50 to $2, on Sunday.
When asked about the lawsuit, MTA Chairman Peter Kalikow said he believed that “the law places the MTA as the final decision maker.”
“We will abide by whatever decision is properly rendered by the court,” Kalikow added.
The state and city comptrollers each issued highly critical reports last week, charging the MTA concealed hundreds of millions of dollars in projected surplus in an effort to justify the fare hike. The increase was approved in March.
MTA officials said the use of the money was publicly discussed and no effort was made to hide it. If the MTA put off a fare increase until 2004, they said, the hike would have been closer to 50 percent.
Gov. George Pataki, who controls most appointments to the MTA board, has said he would not interfere and that he had full confidence in the agency.
The fare hike was approved by the MTA board on March 6, after holding the public hearings.
“Based on my nearly 25 years of organizing transit riders, I know many riders and officials who spoke at the hearings _ including myself _ would have given significantly different testimony if the MTA had not misled them about the agency’s finances,” Russianoff said in a supporting affidavit of the lawsuit.