Council members, community advocates and teenagers held a rally Tuesday morning at Martin Luther King High School on the Upper West Side to protest the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's plan to cut student MetroCards.

The MTA Board last month approved a series of cost-cutting measures aimed at closing a nearly $400 million budget gap.

But the plan to eliminate free student MetroCards has drawn the most criticism. More than 500,000 students rely on the cards to get to school.

"If your family can't afford to get a MetroCard to go from the North Shore of Staten Island to Bronx High School of Science, you can't go,” said Quinn at today’s protest. “Then maybe you can't get into the best colleges in the country and maybe you can't have all the opportunities that would lead you to be the best that you can be."

The council speaker suggests using $100 million dollars in federal stimulus money, and a little-known federal program to help the MTA.

"Some have said, that's what we did in the 1970s, we took capital and we used it for day-to-day expenses, and they're right; you don't want to do that,” said Quinn. “But Pay-Go Capital, set up by the federal government, is an exception to that rule, and it's created in a way to allow you to do this in limited opportunities in a transparent way, to help support the critical parts of the system."

However, the head of the MTA blames the problem on the state, for cutting millions in subsidies it gave the agency to keep the student cards free.

"If we're able to get the financial support to get free rides for students of New York City, we'd be happy to see it happen,” said MTA Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Jay Walder.

After all the uproar, Governor David Paterson said he will find a way to restore funding if the free cards are eliminated. But if the MTA doomsday budget holds, 21 bus routes would still be eliminated, which advocates for the disabled and elderly say would be disastrous.

"Most New Yorkers who are disabled don't even attempt to use the subways because the elevators, the gap, etc.,” said Edith Prentiss, vice president of Disable in Action Metro New York. “They are going to be making more and more people use Access-a-Ride. It's going to cost even more money."

Meanwhile, in Astoria Tuesday, Queens residents and elected officials protested plans to do away with the W line, which now shares tracks with the N.

“We need more trains, better service, The MTA says as a result of these cuts there is going to be longer waits, more people, more transfers,” said City Councilman Peter Vallone Jr.

"The N train is going to be even more crowded and it's already really crowded in the morning,” commuter Jeremiah Frei-Pearson said.

The MTA maintains other lines will make up for the W and Astoria will not be affected. There are also plans to eliminate the Z line and shorten two other lines.

Public hearings will be held over the next couple of months for New Yorkers to sound off on the plans.