Another Round of MTA Fare Hikes Likely

The head of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is painting a bleak picture for commuters looking to avoid a second fare hike in as many years.

The executive director and CEO of the MTA, Elliot Sander, said the agency is facing shrinking revenues and increased expenses, and could be between $15 billion and $20 billion behind on its next capital budget and have an operating budget deficit of more than $500 million by the end of the fiscal year.

"We are reaching our time of reckoning," Mr. Sander said at an MTA finance committee meeting yesterday in response to questions about a possible fare hike. "If the MTA does not receive assistance from Albany and its funding partners, then there's a real prospect of that happening."

He said the capital spending shortfall was due to increasing construction costs, which the committee addressed with more than $2.4 billion in deferrals from the original capital plan of 2005-09. It would most notably delay renovations to 19 subway stations.

"Things that get deferred have a way of disappearing," the chief attorney for the Straphangers Campaign, Gene Russianoff, said, noting that when the original capital program was ratified, 12 additional station renovations were also deferred. "My view is a cut is a cut."

Much of the operating budget shortfall has to do with dwindling real estate revenues, which are $122 million behind year-to-date figures in budget projections. In addition, the agency is already more than $9 million over budget in fuel costs.

The MTA is waiting for recommendations from the Ravitch Commission, formed by Governor Paterson and headed by a former MTA chairman, Richard Ravitch, which is studying ways to raise money for the agency's capital and operating budgets.

The panel's report is not expected until the end of November.

"For riders, this is going to mean longer waits, traveling in older trains, buses, and crumbling stations, and possibly higher fares," Mr. Russianoff said. "I think it would be outrageous to tax the riders so soon."

It would be just the second time in the 104-year history of the New York City subway system that fare hikes occurred in consecutive years.

The MTA is scheduled to present its preliminary plan for dealing with the expected deficit in the 2009 budget next month.