This January, the MTA announced that it plans to discontinue student Metrocards beginning in the fall of 2010, in addition to across-the-board cuts of bus and train service, as well as paratransit (Access-A-Ride). Understandably, students, teachers, and parents are outraged. Many students live more than an hour away from their schools, and parents protest that they can’t afford Metrocards for their children. Others are concerned that discontinuing student Metrocards would encourage students to jump turnstiles. At a public hearing to discuss the issue on March 3rd, four arrests were made for “disorderly conduct” as people expressed their frustration with the proposed cuts.

According to figures, the state and city have paid the same amount for student Metrocards over the past ten years despit fare inflation, leaving the MTA to pay the estimated $70 million difference per year. Now, faced with a deficit of nearly $800 million, the MTA says that it cannot continue to make up the difference as the gap continues to widen. Why should the MTA allocate its funds for something the city has not deemed important enough to help pay for in full?

However, there is some skepticism about just how broke the MTA really is. Recently electronic arrival time signboards were installed in select train lines. This $213 million system seems unnecessary, especially given that the subways have been running just fine without them for 45 years.

The fact is, the MTA needs city funding, and targeting students is the perfect way to get it; the influx of angry letters and noisy protests will alert the government to the MTA's financial crisis. Students, parents, and teachers are vocal, make up a huge population of the city, and have a good point: invest in the future. If the MTA removed a single train from each line, causing minute-longer waits, the cuts would be almost unnoticeable. Few would take the time to complain. But by making huge cuts in one carefully chosen area, the MTA almost guarantees that the government will be forced to give it financial help. These seemingly unjust budget changes are actually a tactical ploy.

Furthermore, the cut isn't legally plausible. According to New York state law, “Sufficient transportation facilities…shall be provided by the school district…for all children attending grades nine through twelve who live more than three miles from the school which they legally attend and shall be provided for each such child up to a distance of fifteen miles.” (New York Education Law Section 3635 - Transportation-Section 1-a.) All New York City residents and high school students who meet these requirements should receive compensation for transportation from the Department of Education.

There is no reason not to do exactly what the MTA wants and expects us to do: protest. The MTA may have been bluffing in its initial proposal, but if it finds that there is little resistance to the cut, it won’t hesitate to cut out the expensive student Metrocard and leave the state to pay for our transportation.