Gothamist picks up on the NYC Independent Budget Office's report that, thanks to mounting debt, the MTA may be forced to raise subway and bus fares to as much as $3 per ride by 2010. As the Daily News explains, the hikes will be necessary if the agency can't find the money elsewhere:
The doomsday scenario could hit if other revenue sources, including dedicated taxes, state subsidies and MTA bridge and tunnel tolls, are not increased, according to the report, which was commissioned by the Straphangers Campaign.
There is, of course, an excellent potential source of new revenue, as Straphangers pointed out:
"If we don't get financial help soon, transit riders will face whopping fare hikes," said Gene Russianoff of the rider advocacy group. He urged Gov. Spitzer to back Mayor Bloomberg's congestion pricing proposal.
If opponents of congestion pricing insist on labeling the idea as nothing more than a regressive tax increase, perhaps they'll consider which is really more regressive: a fee that would impact only five percent of New Yorkers, most of whom don't even need to drive into Manhattan, or a fare hike that would hit hard in the pocketbooks of the great majority of the city's workers.
