From Eliot Spitzer’s Never-Never Land:
Nov. 20 (Bloomberg [1]) — The base fare for New York City’s subways and buses will stay at $2 through 2009 after the state authority that operates the network found $220 million in additional revenue
From the real world, Michael Tarm:
CHICAGO (AP [2]) — As a civil engineer, Om Goel had faith that Chicago’s world-famous El, however old, rickety and perennially cash-strapped, was maintained well enough that the trains would at least stay on the tracks.
[…]
Transit officials say problems abound:
_New York City’s subway system, the nation’s largest, is chronically overcrowded even though the city has spent more than $50 billion since 1982 to rescue its mass-transit network.
“Most riders think the subway’s run by an angry, indifferent god,” said Gene Russianoff of the Straphangers Campaign, a transit advocacy group. “On some lines, I can’t believe how many people are crammed in. It’s like a Picasso painting — arms here, legs and shoes there.”
For those who recall how bad things used to be in New York, today’s system looks good, Russianoff said. For example, the transit agency says a train now breaks down about once every 150,000 miles versus once every 7,000 miles in 1982.
So get this, the New York City subway system is flushed with riders, but chronically short of cash. The infrastructure is falling apart, yet the governor refuses to authorize a fare increase.
I suppose that when I-35 happens in NYC and scores die, the same Albany politicians will urge that the only fix will for me to pay yet more in taxes.
How long would you last in the real world if you run booming business but were constantly losing money. It not the way to run a McDonalds and it not the way to run a transit system. Then I quess Ronald McDonald is smarter than Eliot Spitzer.