Homeowners, especially those caught in today's mortgage crisis, know that big borrowing can prove as burdensome as big spending.
Government leaders can draw the same lesson from the upcoming fare and toll hikes. These were set in motion, for the most part, under Gov. George Pataki, as his administration relied more on borrowing and less on tax funds to maintain the region's mass transit system.
The various fare jumps on the Long Island Rail Road and regional bus and subways take effect in March, along with toll hikes on the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's bridges and tunnels. Despite some hue and cry last week as the authority voted for the increases, nobody should have been surprised. In 2005, the authority's then-director Katherine Lapp was quoted in Newsday as saying fare hikes would occur every couple of years to cover jumps in operating costs. Today $1.5 billion of the authority's $10 billion budget goes to debt service, a cost that will approach $2 billion by 2010.
Dan Janison