MTA Fare Hike Hearing Held In Queens
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The Metropolitan Transportation Authority held another public hearing on fare hikes Thursday, and once again, it was sparsely attended.
The ballroom at the Sheraton LaGuardia East Hotel in Queens was largely empty.
With so many still trying to recover from Sandy, only 11 people signed up to speak at Thursday's public hearing, but all of them said the same thing: now is not the time to raise fares on struggling New Yorkers.
"The four proposals are 'pick your poison,'" said Jason Chin-Fatt of the Straphangers Campaign. "It's going to affect different riders in different ways. If you have an unlimited MetroCard and you use it, you're going to be defending a proposal that doesn't raise unlimited MetroCards as much."
"My mother is disabled and my father is retired. They are basically living off of social security and all that," said commuter Chris Coury. "I help them with whatever I can, but by raising these fares, it's going to pose more of burden."
The MTA provided shuttle buses for anyone out in the hardest hit areas of Queens who wanted to attend. It's not clear how many of those residents made it to the meeting.