Upstate transit agencies are warning of possible service cuts if more funding isn\u2019t provided in the final state budget.<\/p>\n
They\u2019re seeking a 15% increase, which would mean an additional $75.8 million for upstate transit agencies, for a total of $1.09 billion, according to lawmakers.<\/p>\n
Miguel Vel\u00e1zquez, the president of the New York Public Transit Association, said during a Wednesday news conference that many upstate agencies are dealing with deficits.<\/p>\n
“Without this 15%, we’re not able to fix that structural deficit so that we can continue serving our customers the way we’re serving them today, maintain the level of service that we have today and improve upon that service,\u201d said Vel\u00e1zquez, who is also CEO of Regional Transit Service in the Rochester area.<\/p>\n
Capital District Transportation Authority CEO Frank Annicaro went further, warning that service cuts are imminent without more state funding.<\/p>\n
\u201cCDTA will have to make tough decisions that include service reductions this May with additional impacts coming in August,\u201d Annicaro said. \u201cThe time to ensure this does not happen is right now. Affordable, reliable transit has never been more important.\u201d<\/p>\n
The concerns come at a time when many agencies are seeing increased ridership and hope to take advantage of people considering other transportation options as fuel costs rise.<\/p>\n
The state Senate\u2019s budget proposal includes the 15% request, while the Assembly included 7.4%. Both are more than Gov. Kathy Hochul\u2019s proposal of 5.75%.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe worked hard to make sure that there was going to be an increase from where the governor started, and I think we all know that we want to get to that direction in the final budget document,\u201d said Sen. Jeremy Cooney, D-Rochester, chair of the Senate Transportation Committee.<\/p>\n
The deadline to reach a budget agreement is March 31, ahead of the start of the new fiscal year April 1. But lawmakers said Thursday that a deal is unlikely to be reached by that deadline.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Upstate transit agencies are warning of possible service cuts if more funding isn\u2019t provided in the final state…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":176911,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[9,24,63,134,136,135],"class_list":["post-176914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-staten-island","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-staten-island","tag-staten-island-headlines","tag-staten-island-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176914\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/176911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}