So the MTA discovers that it has a $400 million budget gap and more than 500,000 public school students who currently commute for free will have to pay half price next September and full price the year
after that.
Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer has posted an
electronic
petition to sign if you want to protest MTA cuts to student subway
and
bus passes. The MTA's vote yesterday (Wed., Dec. 16) passed these
and
other measures, but protests are only beginning; perhaps we can
help
change at least this particular decision. Singing the petition
only
takes a minute!
I’m all for kids having free subway rides to get to school, but shouldn’t the cost of it be covered by the Department of Education. Why does the MTA have to pay for a child’s transportation to school?
In any event, this is a political stunt by the MTA. The threat of taking away free subway transportation will force the politicians to send more money to the MTA to cover the program. It is a game.
How about a petition for all the access-a-ride customers who won’t be able to get to their jobs now? I know people who could not work without access-a-ride..who have disabilites too severe just to drop them off at the nearest subway station! I am hearing very little protest about this. NYC is one of the few, if not only, places in the world people with disabilities can work and live independently and without door to door access-a-ride this will no longer be true.
What if you fully support phasing out student MetroCards because the state just cut its contributions to the program from $45 million to $6 million a year and the MTA shouldn’t be in the business of transporting the state’s students to free at a crippling loss to its bottom line? Where’s that petition?
Or your reporting on it? The facts are out there.
Is there a way to sign this petition without creating a typepad account or linking all of my facebook world to typepad? Too many passwords and accounts at to many things on the Web and I just want to support this petition! Thanks.