The MTA voted Wednesday to surrender free lifetime travel passes granted to board members – while insisting to the end there was nothing wrong with the freebies.

The unanimous vote rescinding the boardroom-to-the-grave perks ended years of free travel that even extended to some spouses of board members.

“There’s no statement that we’re making to suggest what occurred was illegal,” Metropolitan Transportation Authority CEO Elliot Sander said. “We may have well won in court.”

MTA Chairman Dale Hemmerdinger told reporters that the authority opted to quickly dispatch with the controversy that flared last month after a Daily News report on free E-ZPass tags.

“The rationale is that you have made an issue of whether people get a free ride or not, and that took the focus off really epic issues facing the MTA, which is how to fund the megaprojects and how were going to continue to fund providing service for 8.5 million New Yorkers,” Hemmerdinger told reporters.

One day after The News’ report, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said the practice was illegal as board members are supposed to serve without salary or other compensation.

He vowed to take legal action if the MTA didn’t stop giving the free access to its bridges, tunnels, subways, buses and commuter trains in the MTA network.

Cuomo said he was pleased with the policy change that still allows free travel to current board members – but only when on official duty.

“They would have lost this in a court of law, and they would have lost this in a court of public opinion,” Cuomo said. “Getting rid of lifetime E-ZPasses and other perks will ensure the independence of the MTA board and will save New York taxpayers money.”

Hemmerdinger stressed Wednesday that board members didn’t accept their unsalaried positions because of the perks and most didn’t even know they were available until after they were appointed.

The MTA will inform former board members and relatives with the passes to return them, Hemmerdinger said. One former board member, however, said he’ll go to court to challenge the directive.

“I think I earned it,” Warren Dolny, 79, of the Bronx said of his passes. “I did my job and I didn’t get reimbursed.”

The MTA is in a financial tailspin with burgeoning budget gaps created in part because of declining tax revenues and soaring payment on borrowing undertaken in past years to compensate for inadequate state funding.

After hiking fares and tolls in March, the MTA may be forced to increase them again next year, officials said.

Source: NY Daily News