(The following article by Joie Tyrrell, Joshua Robin and Tom Demoretcky was published by Newsday on May 15. Newsday staff writers Sumathi Reddy and Dawn Wotapka contributed to this story.)
NEW YORK — A Manhattan judge yesterday ordered the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to roll back recently increased transit fares, including the 25 percent hike imposed on Long Island Rail Road riders.
Finding that the original hearings “were based on the false and misleading premise that the MTA was in worse financial condition than it knew itself to be,” State Supreme Court Justice Louis York said the MTA has two weeks to restore the $1.50 subway fare and the old commuter railroad rates. Then the authority can hold another set of public hearings on raising fares, the judge said.
But MTA officials said yesterday that they plan to appeal. “The MTA disagrees with Judge York’s decision,” spokesman Tom Kelly said, adding that there are no immediate plans in place for any refunds or reductions in fares.
York’s ruling in a lawsuit brought by the Straphangers Campaign stunned riders and watchdogs, who reacted gleefully yesterday to the possibility of paying lower fares.
“That’s great,” said Victoria Genna, 27, who travels on the railroad each day from Hicksville to the city and saw her monthly LIRR ticket increase from $154 to $192. “People always say they are going to fight for this, but it never really happens,” she said. “I’m actually kind of shocked.”
Peter Haynes, president of the LIRR Commuters Campaign, an advocacy group, said he was surprised the judge rolled back the fares.
“I didn’t give this a snowball’s chance to come through,” Haynes said. The MTA is in dire need of an overhaul from top to bottom, he said.
The MTA board had voted earlier this year to raise commuter rail fares by an average of 25 percent for the 275,000 riders on the Long Island Rail Road. Bus and subway fares also jumped from $1.50 to $2.
The Straphangers Campaign, a riders’ advocacy group, had argued that the MTA violated the law by failing to make its financial situation clear before scheduling public hearings on the fare increases. The lawsuit followed a a state audit showing the MTA concealed more than $500 million in surplus to make its finances look worse than they were.
State Sen. Dean Skelos (R-Rockville Centre) said the MTA has a “rehabilitation process with the public ahead.”
He also said he expects the Legislature to act.
“We will certainly be looking at any reforms necessary to breathe fresh air into the MTA,” said Skelos, who is on the MTA Capital Review Board.
LIRR customers have been paying higher fares since the end of last month when monthly tickets went on sale.
Getting off a train in Babylon, Joe Mazzie, of Babylon Village, a salesman who works in Manhattan, was told the news. “So give me my money back,” he said, explaining that he had already bought his monthly pass.
Martha Sanabia, who works for a computer software company in Manhattan and lives in Babylon Village, said the new fares had brought her monthly charges from $211 to $260. “That’s great,” she said of the judge’s ruling. “This is very good news,” she said. “I can see 10 percent, but 25 percent, it’s ludicrous, it’s crazy, it’s a lot of money for me.”
The MTA had been the subject of separate audits by the state and city comptrollers that were extremely critical of its books and finances. State Comptroller Alan Hevesi and City Comptroller William Thompson found that the MTA had a surplus of more than a half-billion dollars in future budgets that could have been used to offset or minimize the fare hikes.
Hevesi and Thompson asked the MTA not to appeal the ruling.
“I urge the MTA not to appeal this, to roll the fare back and do the honorable thing, then go out to the public with accurate numbers and put the case before them,” Thompson said.