Nearly 600,000 students in and around the five boroughs rely on state funded MetroCards to get to and from school each day are learning a hard lesson: there’s no such thing as a free ride.
That hasn’t been the case since the mid-1990s, when the city and state began contributing $45 million to funding free metro passes for area students, according to the New York Daily News. But, like with so many services nationwide, the economy is dictating that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority reverse course and begin charging students for the bus and subway cards in an effort to recoup some $170 million the MTA says it loses each year. Last week, the MTA board announced that it plans to begin charging students half fares next fall and full fares in September 2011 based upon each individual student’s length of commute, not the student’s income.
That could have a disastrous effect on school choice and the promise receiving a quality education. To make matters worse, MTA also proposed eliminating 21 bus routes and two subway lines by next summer. So those NYC transit buses and railcars figure to not only get more expensive for students, presenting a very real hardship for those from lower-income families, and much more crowded. Hardly the type of commute conducive to preparing a kid to excel during the school day. Hundreds of students turned out this week in protest.
Gov. David Paterson has said that students would be the first to benefit from any increase in state revenue realized next year as free MTA passes for students is a priority, and state legislators have said other budget cuts could be made to keep the student program alive. But that remains a big if, especially after Paterson outlined the state’s dire financial straits last week. For the first time ever, including after 9/11, the state’s cash position is the weakest it’s been. The state’s General Fund was forecasted to have a negative balance of more than $1 million by the end of this month. School aid is being reduced by $146 million in an attempt to improve cash flow.
As a result, the Office of Pupil Transportation at the NYC Department of Education that coordinates student MetroCards is struggling financially in its own right, so simply getting more kids on yellow school buses is no slam dunk based on route reductions and eliminations not to mention a host of rider eligibility rules.
What does this all do to the promise of a quality education and the option for students to attend local gifted and talented programs and schools? Whatever it does, it can’t be too good.
