MTA board nixes service restoration plan

Riders are stuck with the elimination of dozens of bus and subway lines and fewer Long Island Rail Road trains after the MTA board Wednesday rejected a proposal to restore some service.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority board, in a 6-4 vote, rejected an amendment proposed by member Allen Cappelli to set aside $20 million of next year's $12.7-billion budget to restore some lost service. The board then voted to pass the budget as is.

Cappelli, of Staten Island, and Suffolk County representative Mitchell Pally led the drive to take advantage of the MTA's improved fiscal situation and restore some of the cuts, which were enacted last year to save the MTA about $93 million annually.

Pally and Cappelli said it would not be asking too much to find $20 million in a budget of $12.7 billion, and estimated it would require creating about 300 new labor jobs.

"I have people on Long Island who have absolutely no service anymore -- none -- at certain parts of the day," said Pally, of Stony Brook, who added that he is open to revisiting the restoration plan if the MTA's financial situation worsens before service would be brought back next summer.

Several members of the MTA's management team vehemently opposed the plan, saying that every bit of this year's projected surplus is needed to ward off a potential deficit next year. New MTA executive director Joseph Lhota called the service restoration proposal "dangerous."

"What you would be burdening this budget with is another $20 million," said Lhota, who added that he looks forward to the day the MTA can restore the cuts, but believed Wednesday was not that day. "Any idea that this doesn't cost money and doesn't cause pain I think is erroneous and misleading."

SEE PHOTOSLIRR trains and commuters through the years

MTA chief financial officer Robert Foran said the MTA's fragile finances took another hit earlier this month when the agency learned it would lose $87 million in state aid in 2012 and more than $300 million in revenue from its payroll mobility tax, which was recently amended to exempt small businesses. The state has vowed to find another way to recover that money for the MTA.

Given the precarious economy, Foran said, it's possible that any restored service would have to be cut again before long.

"This amendment is going to put us in a position where we are going to lose our credibility, not restore our credibility," Foran said before the vote was taken.

Although the amendment was defeated, Ira Greenberg, a nonvoting board member representing MTA riders, said he was encouraged by the fact that even board members who voted "no" expressed their support for eventual restoration of the cuts.

"It's a cause for hope," Greenberg said.

The board Wednesday approved a plan to finance the final three years of the current five-year, $24-billion MTA capital plan, largely by borrowing money. The plan, which lasts through 2014, funds major infrastructure projects such as the LIRR's East Side Access plan to connect to Grand Central Terminal.