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Paterson's Budget Won't Save Student MetroCards
By
Ben Muessig
Published Jan 20, 2010
Modified Jan 20, 2010
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By
Ben Muessig
Published Jan 20, 2010
Modified Jan 20, 2010
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In his proposed budget, Governor Paterson allocated $25 million to preserving student MetroCards — but that's just a fraction of the $214 million the Metropolitan Transportation Authority claims it needs to continue letting students commute to school for free. Unless the city and the state can scrounge together the remaining $189 million, the MTA says it will move forward with its controversial plan to begin charging some 585,000 students half-price fares in September and full-price fares the following school year.
The Daily News reports that the city and the state used to cover the cost of providing free transit to students, but former Mayor Giuliani and former Gov. Pataki cut contributions to $45 million each, covering about two-thirds of the cost of the program. As the service grew more expensive, neither the city and the state increased the funding, and the state reduced its contribution to $25 million, then again to $6 million. Even though Paterson's proposed $25 million contribution isn't nearly enough to preserve student MetroCards, his budget "characterizes the student funding as an increase over last year — but that's only because the program was slashed nearly to extinction last year," according to the tabloid.
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Albany
budget
gov paterson
metrocard
metropolitan transportation authority
MTA
paterson
Student
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Ben Muessig
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