A Stitch in Haste

The good news is that subway fares might not rise as is currently planned:

"We don't want to do it," [MTA Executive Director Katherine] Lapp said of the expected hikes in 2007 and 2009 during testimony before a state legislative budget committee in Albany yesterday. "It's the last resource that we look to to close the budget."

The bad news:

Should revenue exceed what the MTA is projecting, particularly in the area of real-estate-transaction tax receipts, a fare hike may be avoidable, Lapp said.

Which invites the question of why "real-estate-transaction tax receipts" should be used to finance the MTA at all.

Here's a radical idea: the people who ride the subway should, um, pay for it. Not the people who buy and sell property.

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Speaking of the subway and money, here's one just for flavor:

A ride home on the F train doubled the cost of Samantha Hoover's groceries -- after a cop wrote her a $50 ticket for putting the plastic bag on the seat next to her.
...
"Next thing I know, a police officer walks up and wants to know if I've ever been arrested," said Hoover. "He asked for my identification and said, 'You can't put your bag there.' "

Hoover's life as an outlaw was made possible by new MTA subway rules -- prohibiting activities such as roller-skating or walking between cars, not to mention putting bags on seats.

Well, that's one way to keep fares down.