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| Bee Line bus riders will pay MTA fare increases (211243) | |||
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Bee Line bus riders will pay MTA fare increases |
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Posted by Gold_12th on Sun Oct 24 15:33:13 2010 Westchester bus riders will pay MTA increasesWestchester Bee-Line bus riders will pay the same fare increases as passengers of New York City subways and buses after all. The local buses accept the same MetroCards that New York City transit riders use. But when the Metropolitan Transportation Authority chose this month to raise its fares — boosting the cost of a monthly MetroCard to $104 from $89, for instance — Westchester County transportation officials considered setting their own prices. On Friday, however, the county transportation department told the MTA it would join with the increases, which start Dec. 30. Part of the issue was whether the county could charge fares different from the MTA's and still use the cards. An MTA spokesman said the county was allowed to set its own fees, although it would have to make arrangements to account for the price differences when riders transfer from the city system to the county's. But on Friday, Westchester Director of Surface Transportation Richard Stiller said the MTA had told him that, practically, it could not be done. Stiller said he was told by the MTA department that handles the MetroCards that there was no room left in the programming for the cards' magnetic strips to include the needed codes for varying fares on the monthly and weekly cards. The explanation jibes with what former Westchester Transportation Commissioner Larry Salley said repeatedly when the MTA raised fares last year, that the county was not able to choose its own fares for MetroCards. MTA officials told Westchester they needed to know what the county had decided on the matter by Friday, said acting Transportation Commissioner John Hsu. For riders such as Jonathan Cosmo of Ossining, the added $15 a month is a burden. "I don't know how they expect us to pay it," said the 19-year-old, waiting for a bus at the White Plains depot. He rides the Bee-Line to work and said of the increase: "I think it's a horrible idea." Others said it would not be a problem. "It's not really a big difference in my case," said Darnell Rainey, 18, of Port Chester who takes buses to Mercy College in Dobbs Ferry. Hsu said he understood that the higher fares would be unpopular with some, but that governments needed to strike a "fine balancing act" among priorities in tight times. He expects state aid — $43 million this year — to decrease next year, for instance. "It's a trade-off," he said Friday after a county Transportation Board meeting in Mount Vernon. "No one wants to increase taxes, no one wants to decrease service, no one wants to increase fares. But the reality is, someone's got to pay for it." Hsu said the department does not expect the ridership to drop because of the increased fares. The new fares also will push up the cost of a seven-day MetroCard to $29 from $27. The $2.25 cost of a single ride, however, will stay the same. "Well, that's a blessing," said Yonkers paralegal Katherine Perry, 46, who takes the buses a couple of times a week, paying individually for each ride. Leaving the MetroCard system, which the county joined in April, 2007, was not a serious option. That would force the 40 percent of passengers who transfer between the county and New York City to pay twice, costing them much more than the fare increases, Hsu said. As Stiller put it: "It would be going backward." Source: http://www.lohud.com/article/20101024/NEWS01/10240382/-1/newsfront/Westchester-bus-riders-will-pay-MTA-increases |
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