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Brooklyn seethed with rage on Wednesday after the Metropolitan Transportation Authority voted to significantly raise fares and tolls, while drastically hacking away at mass transit service across the borough and city.

Months of political bickering and dickering with Albany culminated in a vote by the MTA’s board to jack up the base fare to $2.50 from $2 and monthly passes to $103 from $81 effective May 31, while cutting the Z line entirely, shuttering some stations late at night and eliminating popular bus routes throughout the borough in a sweeping reduction that had been threatened months in advance of the meeting.

The reaction showed that MTA now stands for Make Them Angry.

“It’s a disgrace, a disaster! It’s terrible!” choked Eugene Flannery, a Brooklyn Heights retiree. “There are so many unemployed people, how can they afford the new fares?”

The younger generation joined in.

“I can’t believe they have the nerve to raise the price!” carped Letisha Morris, a college student from Bedford-Stuyvesant. “I always have to re-adjust my life every time there’s a service change.”

But it wasn’t just the riders who were railing; there was anger from all quarters after the MTA approved its so-called “doomsday budget,” which the agency said was necessary to close a $1.2-billion budget gap after a proposal by Gov. Paterson and Assembly Speaker Silver (D–Manhattan) to impose tolls on the East and Harlem river crossing, raise area payroll taxes and increasing fares by eight percent stalled in the Democrat-controlled state Senate.

• Sens. Kevin Parker (D–Flatbush) and Carl Kruger (D–Brighton Beach) vociferiously opposed any bailout for the MTA, even one that would keep fares down for the vast majority of their constituents who ride the rails or buses rather than drive to jobs in Manhattan.

• Borough President Markowitz fumed, although the MTA’s decision spared him his biggest fear — East River bridge tolls.

• Rep. Mike McMahon (D–Bay Ridge) and Councilman Vince Gentile (D–Bay Ridge) gagged on the effect the cuts will have on their outer-borough constituents. McMahon said the vote was “a disgrace.”

But whose voice is the angriest? Yours.

“Here’s my comment,” said Joshua McKenney, as he exited the L-train station at Lorimer Street on Wednesday. His comment? An upraised middle finger, a salute to the MTA and Albany that was in wide use this week.

— with Evan Gardner

©2009 The Brooklyn Paper

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