City students on Facebook, in the streets over MTA cuts

Public high school students, as well as teachers and parents, are organizing in new ways against a proposal by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which runs the city's buses and trains, to take away free-and reduced-price Metrocards currently issued to students.

"Yeah, this is insanely crazy," reads a message from high school student Aleize Jarrett-via Facebook. "I go to school from Bronx to Brooklyn everyday, two fares per day. I don't want to spend $4.50 or whatever just to get to school. It's already worse, since teacher's jobs are getting cut."

People from across the city are in a rage, but young people have taken the lead in organizing. A number of new Facebook groups have sprung up in the past few weeks, including one, "Protest the MTA getting rid of STUDENT METROCARDS," which currently has nearly 100,000 members.

Out of that group, one successful protest of 200 students has already taken place and more are planned.

"The student organizing has been incredibly impressive," Working Families Party spokesperson Dan Levitan told the World. "You've got students using the tools that they use every day in their own life to really organize a rapid response."

"They've used the tools that connect to them to organize themselves," Levitan continued. "They had a protest with hundreds of people that was put together in just a couple of days."

The WFP is fighting the cuts via a more traditional route, through a petition drive. Launched in December, it already has about 10,000 signatures.

Levitan noted that, were the changes to go through, there would be a huge disparity between city students and those in the rest of the state, where, like in the rest of the country, students are picked up by yellow buses and brought to school for free.

While cutting free rides for students has drawn the most attention, the MTA is also drawing riders' ire by pushing other cuts: two subway lines and dozens of bus routes are also on the chopping block.

After a demonstration, New York City Council speaker Christine Quinn called the cuts "a slap in the face to hard working people across our city."

Also slated to go are services for the disabled and the elderly.

"They're going to significantly scale back Access-a-Ride for the disabled. Right now you can call Access-a-Ride and they'll take you basically anywhere you want to go. Under the new thing, they'll just take you to the nearest accessible subway station, and then it's just like, ‘good luck.'"

The MTA voted on the cuts in December, but they aren't slated to take effect until June, giving New Yorkers time to organize.

The students are planning another demonstration on January 11, and the city council is vowing to continue the fight, starting with their own petition drive.

Levitan says that he is optimistic: "This fight continues, and as it gets closer to the time when these cuts get implemented, I think you're going to see that really take off."

By Dan Margolis

Communist Party Statement on MTA Fare Hike Vote

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority voted 12-1 to raise fares by more than 20 percent and to impose dramatic service cuts, including the elimination of two subway lines and dozens of bus routes.

But their vote is far from the final word.

These are nothing more than empty scare tactics; no one expects such draconian measures to actually pass. The MTA is cynically attempting to manipulate public opinion in order to push Albany to enact the Ravitch Plan, which would also raise fares by a smaller amount and impose new tolls on the East and Harlem River bridges.

Why should we choose between bad and horrible? Why should working people pay more to commute into Manhattan? They surely aren’t driving in for fun or because they like to drive—there just isn’t enough public transit in many of the outer boroughs, Long Island and Westchester.

What about the stimulus money? They are using it in such a way that it’s not going to benefit the budget problem in our region. Instead they are using it for pet projects, like the extension of the 7 line, something only of interest to the big developers.

The MTA should open its books so that the public can see exactly how much money they need, how much is wasted or spent on projects that can wait.

The federal stimulus money gives $1.4 billion to the MTA, and $24.4 billion for the state and city. We need to set up a public control council for the use of all this money, to make sure that it’s used in the interest of regular, working people and not for the pet projects of the billionaires and big developers.

Also, New York straphangers pay a higher percentage of operating costs for our mass transit system than almost any other city in the country. Money from the general funds should be directed to transit, and a tax on those making more than $250,000 yearly would help fund that and other necessary services.

The MTA itself should be radically altered, so that its leadership represents the people of New York. Look at its board. Its voting members are mainly a bunch of big developers and Wall Street financiers, the kind of people who have brought disaster to the U.S. economy—does anyone really think that these people can represent New York’s working population? The board should be more representative of New Yorkers, and should include labor, as well as organizations of the racially and nationally oppressed, and people involved in the fights for better education, health care, really affordable housing and against foreclosures.

If the MTA board wants to do what’s right for New Yorkers, they should resign.