‘MTA—we won’t pay!’

“If you see something, say something.” This phrase is printed on thousands of posters throughout the New York City transit system. It urges riders to notify the authorities regarding any threat to public safety on the transit lines.

Thousands of outraged transit riders and transit workers across the greater New York area are saying that the Metropolitan Transit Authority and its proposed fare hikes and service cuts are posing direct threats to public safety on the transit system.

Riders and transit workers join forces against the MTA. WW photos: John Catalinotto

In efforts to make up a supposed $1.2 billon budget shortfall, the MTA is proposing reductions to the transit work force through the closing of station booths, an increase in the fare from $2.00 per ride to $2.50, and the wholesale elimination of vital subway and bus routes across the five boroughs.

The MTA has also announced the unconscionable decision to raise the Access-A-Ride fare by 200 percent, from $2 to $6. Access-A-Ride is a transportation service for the elderly and disabled, the majority of whom survive on low fixed incomes. The MTA’s attacks are designed to make the workers and oppressed pay for the mismanagement and misdeeds of the MTA bigwigs and the banks to which they are beholden.

Five hundred transit riders and workers braved snow and rain on Jan. 28 to pack a public hearing and pre-hearing rally organized by the Bail Out the People Movement in downtown Brooklyn. In timed speeches given before the 17-member MTA board, more than 100 people gave testimonies denouncing the proposed service cuts and fare hikes. Speakers told the board that the proposed budget is an unjust and draconian attack on the poor and working-class residents of New York City.

In Brooklyn, the MTA is proposing the elimination of a number of bus lines that serve as vital transportation arteries. At the public hearing, dozens of speakers said that the proposed elimination of the B25 bus line will be devastating to the predominately Black and Latina/o neighborhoods of Bedford Stuyvesant and East New York. The B25 bus is one of the primary ways people access the main commercial strip on Fulton Street in those neighborhoods.

The MTA has attempted to defend its callous decision to eliminate bus routes such as the B25 by saying that there is comparable subway service nearby. The MTA refuses to acknowledge that the majority of subway stations that are near these bus routes do not have elevators, and are thus inaccessible to many elderly and disabled riders.

Mike Godino from the Brooklyn Center for Independence of the Disabled told the MTA board, “The MTA should not have the ability to imprison people in their homes, and that is exactly what you will be doing to elderly and disabled people if you go forward with these service cuts and fare hikes.”

Milagros Franco, a disabled transit rider who attended the public hearing, told Workers World: “I use Access-A-Ride to get to work, to get to the doctor’s, to get to the grocery store, to get to everything. If they raise the fare, I am going to increasingly become a prisoner in my own home. I’m going to be forced to choose between getting food at the grocery store or going to the doctor’s office. It’s not fair that I have to choose. It’s ridiculous that the MTA is targeting the most vulnerable populations. It’s disgusting. It makes me angry. Access-A-Ride means independence for a lot of people in this city. How can we have independence if we can’t afford it?”

The MTA is attempting to paint the $1.2 billion budget shortfall as an unexpected result of the global financial crisis. They have attempted to pass off the cuts and fare hikes as emergency measures borne out of dire fiscal circumstances. But the reality is that since its inception, the MTA has always served as a vehicle that the ruling class uses to transfer public funds directly to the big banks.

The MTA has mismanaged and plundered the people’s tax monies and is undeserving of the people’s trust. If the MTA is truly facing a dire budget shortfall, then they should go to the banks and renegotiate their debt service or beg for a bailout. The MTA must be halted in its attempts to shift its financial problems onto the backs of the workers and oppressed, who are already struggling to survive in this deepening recession.

The only way the MTA can be stopped is by a united people’s movement. For more information on the growing fightback against the MTA, visit www.bailoutpeople.org.