Radio Workshop

Take a Hike (Transcript)

by Andrea Lee

NARRATION

The MTA moves 84% of the state's transit riders, and moves more people in three days than Amtrak does all year. But the MTA receives only 63% of all state aid for mass transit.

That's one of the reasons the MTA expects to face a $2.8 billion deficit in 2003. It's proposing higher fares for subways, buses and tolls, and reduced bus and subway service to cut that deficit by about a third.

More than 200 people filled the ballroom at the Roosevelt Hotel in midtown Manhattan last Wednesday evening to protest the proposed changes. The audience held up signs

and cheered on politicians who spoke to a grim-faced MTA chairman Peter Kalikow and his 11-member panel.

The panel sat silently as State Senator Keith Wright argued that the MTA shouldn't penalize New Yorkers for its own poor budgeting.

ACT 1 / Keith Wright:

Budgets should not be balanced on the backs of people who can least afford

their services to be curtailed. In that same light, instituting a fare hike is

nothing more than a tax on the working class, the working poor and others who

use public transit as their only means of travel.

NARRATION

But the Transport Workers Union Local 100 sees it differently.

ACT 2 / Roger Toussaint

As I speak here today, our union labors under the ominous cloud that if these proposed fare hikes and cutbacks do not go through, that we may be threatened with layoffs.

NARRATION

Union president Roger Toussaint, who represents 38,000 transit workers said that cutting service would damage the world-class reputation of New York's transit system.

The MTA wants to remove token booth clerks at 177 subway stations across the city. Removing these clerks means that many stations would be left with only MetroCard vending machines and automated turnstiles...which some people think could pose serious security threats to the transit system and reduce customer service. Clerks deter crimes such as vandalism and assault, they point out, but are also vital for providing information and help to tourists, immigrants, the illiterate, and the disabled.

At Thursday's hearing in Brooklyn, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz pointed out that the automated MetroCard machines can't call the police, call an ambulance or help someone with directions. He gave examples of stations in Brooklyn where closures would jeopardize rider safety and convenience, and decried the MTA's

proposals in no uncertain terms.

ACT 3 / Marty Markowitz:

Brooklynites are never shy, as you know, about expressing their opinion, and I'm sure I speak for everyone in Brooklyn when I say, about the fare increase,

fuggedaboutit!

AMBIENT

Cheering.

In background: Thank you, Mr. Borough President.

NARRATION

The last hearing will be next Thursday in West Nyack.

For Columbia Radio News, this is Andrea Lee.

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