Future fare increases could be accomplished by raising the price of those cards.
Transit advocates said they hoped that Mr. Paterson's background could help him find alternatives to future fare increases.
Mr. Catsimatidis also has little basis to give the impression that, as mayor, he will stop any future fare or toll increases.
But even those who are not critics of the authority question its decision to take such a combative and insular stance, and they worry that it could hurt the agency's ability to get government help and future fare increases.
Expressing deep concern about the potential for future fare hikes in New York City, Gov. David A. Paterson created a commission in the spring to recommend long-term solutions to the New York authority's deepening financial problems.
Though several of the grandees who spoke at the opening session emphasised the widespread impact that information technology was going to have in the next century, not one of the 25 specialist sessions that followed over the next two days was devoted to the matter.Biotechnology, a discipline that may have a profound effect in the not too distant future, fared only a little better.
But such arguments may raise the risk further in bankers' eyes: they imply that the trams' future fare income depends on jobs as yet uncreated.Stephen Glaister, a transport economist at Imperial College, London, says that risks like these are what private financing reveals.
A spokesman for the Association of Train Operating Companies said: "Train companies are pressing for reform that aims to help limit future fare rises by reducing the costs of running the railways, while making sure that we can keep on improving services for passengers.
The Government should start by reforming the discredited way it calculates future commuter fares and get on with introducing part-time and flexible season tickets".
Much depends on how future films fare with moviegoers.
