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December 12, 2009
Atlantic Yards YES! Transit-riding city school kids NO!!
While the MTA is giving Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner a deep discount on the Vanderbilt Yard, it's considering taking away free and discounted passes from the half-million-plus students who use transit to get to school.
NY Daily News, MTA bigwigs may cut free passes for students to ride subway and busses
The cash-squeezed MTA is considering eliminating free MetroCards for the hundreds of thousands of students who use the passes to get to school, the Daily News has learned.
Under a possible budget-saving measure, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority would charge students half-price fares next year - and full fares starting in 2011, sources told The News.
About 550,000 schoolkids get free or discounted bus and subway passes under a program the state and city once fully funded.
Meanwhile, the MTA, which had already agreed to sell the Vanderbilt Yard to Ratner for less than half its appraised value, is also allowing Ratner to defer 80% of that payment over 22 years at a sweetheart interest rate.
Here's the pot calling the kettle black:
Last night, a member of the Bloomberg administration said City Hall is upset about the student MetroCard proposal and blamed state government officials for cutting transit funding.
"We're extremely concerned about this and have serious problems," the City Hall staffer said. "We very angry with the MTA and furious with Albany for creating a situation where this option is a possibility."
The duplicitous Bloomberg, as Atlantic Yards watchers know, is one of the project's biggest backers, and his appointees to the MTA board (he has four) have approved both the lowball price and the sweetened payment terms.
And then there's the Governor:
Gov. Paterson, asked in general about MTA funding Friday in Albany, said the state has no more money to provide.
"We had to cut the budgets of all agencies and entities and still wind up ... short of our goal," Paterson said. "New York is running out of money."
There is, of course, one pile of state money that's in a lock-box — the hundreds of millions in state welfare for the Atlantic Yards project.
The Mayor and the Governor should be deeply ashamed, but all we get is business as usual. Get angry, people.
Photo: Florescu/Daily News
Posted by eric at December 12, 2009 12:20 PM