Bus aid buys time for Nassau

The announcement that the state will kick in $8.6 million to fund Long Island Bus through the end of the year and forestall service cuts in Nassau County is wonderful for riders who use those routes slated to get the ax. For taxpayers outside Nassau, however, it is a kick in the teeth. They've been subsidizing Long Island Bus for years.

And for County Executive Edward Mangano and his staff, it is one more, perhaps final, opportunity to put in place and fund a workable bus system for the county. If Nassau can do that by Jan. 1, the $8.6 million will have been money well (if not fairly) spent.

Since 1999, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has paid more and more of the cost of running Long Island Bus, while Nassau has paid less and less. The county's annual contribution over that time dipped from $22 million to $9 million, while the MTA's yearly share soared past $30 million. No other suburban county gets a bus subsidy from the MTA.

Last year, the MTA told Nassau it would not continue to carry the county and that Nassau must increase its contribution by $25 million.

Mangano blustered that the MTA was a bureaucratic mass of fraud, waste and abuse, and a private operator could run the system with no subsidy. A bid process failed to turn up any such private operator -- not surprising since there isn't an unsubsidized municipal bus service operating in the United States.

Mangano then said he'd up the county payment by $5 million. The MTA responded by offering the county a couple of years to transition to paying the entire bill, but demanded it admit responsibility for Long Island Bus.

So Mangano said he would quickly seek a private operator to run the system, this time with a subsidy of about $4 million. And the MTA said it would terminate more than 50 percent of Long Island Bus routes on July 1, stranding 16,000 riders. This provoked an outcry, in particular because the loss of Able-Ride would strand so many disabled residents.

Enter Sen. Charles Fuschillo (R-Merrick), chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee. Some threatened routes are in his district and he wasn't willing to see them go, so he worked with the legislature and the MTA until a solution was found. The $8.6 million, to cover the MTA's share of maintaining service without cuts until the end of the year, will come from a capital fund the State Legislature controls. The MTA is expected to give formal notice at its April 21 meeting that it will rescind its contract with Nassau and stop all bus service at year's end. So the deal buys Nassau time, but it also sets a hard deadline. An efficient and well-planned solution must be in place by then.

The county, via a private carrier, believes it can run buses cheaper than the MTA, if only because it won't have to use union workers and can be more efficient. Some routes will probably have to go and Nassau will likely need to kick in more than $4 million.

But creating a useful, affordable bus service that meets the needs of Nassau residents is possible. Mangano and his staff have been given nine months to find and fund the solution. The opportunity, created on the backs of other counties and the state as a whole, must not be squandered. It is, quite possibly, Long Island Bus's last real chance.