by Gabriela Resto-Montero and Mariel S. Clark
DNAinfo Reporter/Producers
MANHATTAN — It's D-Day for the MTA as its board of directors meets to vote on a budget that could mean massive service cuts and the end of free rides for New York City students.
The agency's doomsday scenario is in response to a $343 million deficit caused by an unexpected shortfall in tax revenues combined with a freeze on budget allotments from the state Legislature this year, according to the MTA.
The MTA's board meeting on the 2010 budget began at roughly 9:15 a.m. Before they were scheduled to vote, a string of politicians and riders advocates decried the MTA and its plans to cut service and the elimination of the student program.
"The onus is on you to reject the logic that says when a crisis comes, you go for the most vulnerable," Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer said during his brief testimony.
"I'm very sympathetic as the head of a body that has had to make difficult cuts and will make more difficult cuts," said City Council Speaker Christine Quinn when she addressed the board. "But what you cannot cut out is the public process."
Before the hearing, politicians, transit advocates and other groups rallied to protest the MTA's plan.
"Students have a hard enough time getting to schools, there's a lot of commuter students that have a long way to go," said Jackie Verdejo, with the Straphangers Campaign. "If you dont live around the corner in Manhattan, people come in from different boroughs. It's a necessity."
Gabrielle Gemma, of Chelsea, and with the Bail Out the People Movement, said the MTA's move would be to deny students their education rights.
"Without free means to get to school, hundreds of thousands of kids will drop out," Gemma said.
"There has been practically no opportunity for the public to understand these cuts," Quinn said at the protest, where she outlined an alternative plan. "This is a completely undemocratic process. This is frankly a double insult to the riders of this city."
Quinn's alternative to fill the agency's budget gap that called for the MTA to tap $91.5 million in unused stimulus money, reallocate $50 million in capital funds for operating expenses, and divert $30 million in stimulus money to the budget.
In the MTA's current plan to make up the difference, the cash-strapped agency plans to cancel 21 bus routes, the W and Z subway lines and the student MetroCard program.
The MTA's finance committee passed the budget on Monday.
Cutting the student cards, which are used by hundreds of thousands of students, would save the MTA $160 million, the Daily News reported.
Last week the MTA was dealt a blow when the State Supreme Court required it to give raises to its workers, upholding an August decision that gave transit workers and members of Transport Workers Union Local 100 a 3-year, 11 percent pay increase, according to the New York Post.
"We are extremely disappointed by this decision, which will force the MTA to pay wage increases that are inconsistent with the economic crisis in New York,” the MTA said in a statement.
The agency had petitioned the court to set aside that money because of their financial woes, the New York Times reported.
The MTA won't be getting any budget help from the state. Gov. David Paterson explained that he could not intervene to help the MTA with the budget shortfall at a press conference Sunday.
"My hands are tied right now because we don't have any resources to give them," Paterson told the News.
