Businesses and commuters in the Hudson Valley will get an opportunity to tell the Metropolitan Transportation Authority what they think of its proposed fare increases at a public hearing next month.
“What”™s fair about a fare increase?” quipped Al Samuels, president of the Rockland Business Association. “They aren”™t going to give anyone a chance to complain about what they are doing to the business community.”
The public hearing is scheduled for Sept. 13, 6 p.m., at the Hilton Garden Inn in Newburgh. Registration to comment begins at 5 p.m. or you may register at the MTA”™s website, www.mta.info.
For those in the “quarter-pounder” counties ”“ Dutchess, Orange, Rockland and Putnam ”“ another hike in fees or taxes is adding to the business community”™s frustration and making it difficult for families to balance their own budgets, said Pete Bardunias, president of the Mahopac-Carmel Chamber of Commerce.
“We”™re concerned about any hike, because we get so little in return for our dollars. Our county executive, Bob Bondi, mentioned evaluating some lines that have been shut down in Putnam as a way to increase ridership, particularly the Millbrook line that runs down through Putnam through Dutchess County.
“Whenever we hear anything about fares or the mobility tax, we don”™t think it”™s too much for the MTA to act like a responsible business owner and to be sensitive to the financial shape our residents and businesses are trying to cope with.”
“This fare increase just adds insult to injury,” said Samuels. “We”™re already paying a ”˜mobility tax”™ in counties where MTA service is, at best, minimal.” Putnam, Rockland, Orange and Dutchess have one combined vote on the MTA board.
Even Westchester County, which voted for the mobility tax, has its new county executive, Rob Astorino, speaking out against the 34 cent per $100 payroll tax on businesses. “Where will it end?” Astorino said at a meeting in June with other mid-Hudson county executives at Dominican College.
Fares on all MTA services are expected to rise more than 7 percent. The public agency is considering another hike at parking lots by Dec. 1.
MTA stations are in for a 10 percent hike.
