Free Rides Come One, Come Many….
It never fails as every few months, an elected official genius or two will promote or share some asinine idea involving the MTA with zero merit behind it.
Cue up the latest individuals, some unnamed members of the State Legislature which have introduced bills that would mandate the MTA to provide free or discounted rides to over 1 million riders. Pete Donohue of the New York Daily News has more in this report:
What the hell – free or discounted trips on the subways, buses and commuter trains for everyone!
Members of our now slightly less dysfunctional state Legislature have introduced bills requiring the MTA to give free or reduced-price travel to more than 1 million additional New Yorkers – without providing an extra dime to make up for the lost revenue.
College students would get at least 25% off.
Senior citizens wouldn’t have to pay at all.
Off-duty fire marshals, off-duty police officers and retired cops would all get freebies.
Under one of the bills, the MTA would be legally prohibited from charging public school students – something it threatened to do during a recent fiscal crisis. The proposed bill, however, wouldn’t even require that state and city government continue paying part of the tab as they have for years.
Click here for the complete report.
As I stated, these geniuses always have some asinine idea to share. The kicker with these recent introduced bills is that none of them contain information on where the money is coming from to subsidize these rides. Since the city & state clearly want nothing to do with helping foot the bill.
While the chances of these bills becoming law are slim to none, it sure shows how our so called leaders waste time with such nonsense. I would love to hear their thoughts on where the money was magically coming from to pay for these rides. Maybe they thought the MTA could come up with monopoly money to pay for these rides.
So go ahead, make the MTA foot the bill for these rides. Don’t come crying later when fares have to be raised, services cut, & a system falling into further states of disrepair. You know what they say, “you get what you paid for”.
xoxo Transit Blogger
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