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`Once you start to slip back, it's a very slippery slope.' Jay Walder, MTA executive director
So much for Fare Deal. Bum Deal is the way state legislative leaders are describing Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's plan to knock $750 million out of the subway system's capital program.
And they said Giuliani will have some heavy explaining to do to a Legislature that last year approved a $9.6-billion program contingent on a heavy lift from the city.
"Every time it rains, there's a waterfall under the Canal Street station," said newly selected Acting Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan). "At some point it becomes irresponsible to make cuts like these."
Added Catherine Nolan (D-Ridgewood), who serves on the review board that must approve the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's capital budget, Giuliani's "suggestions show a fundamental lack of understanding. He's like a throwback to the '40s. There are agreements on this and he is going to have to live up to them."
Under the Giuliani plan, the Transit Authority capital program, originally slated to be $7.4 billion, would stand at $6.65 billion, a cut of more than 10 percent.
The MTA has already said that the largest portion of the cut - $500 million from the city's budget, proposed by former Mayor David N. Dinkins last year - will cancel rehabilitation of 28 subway stations and 50 crime-prevention lighting improvements.
But now that Giuliani has proposed cutting an additional $250 million in Municipal Assistance Corp. contributions from the capital program, more cutbacks will have to be devised,...