NEW YORK CITY - The decades-long campaign by the city of New York to get rid of the seven private bus companies that for 30 years have provided daily commuter service for tens of thousands of borough residents is finally coming to an end.

It was announced late last month that the New York Metropolitan Transit Authority is taking over the last of more than 80 transit routes operated by the private companies.

The city said it had successfully negotiated the contracts for the service away from the final bus four companies that had been holding out.

Under the final agreement, the city will pay $25.5 million for the routes and assure that the MTA hires all of the union employees of the companies and guarantees jobs for up to one year for all nonunion staffers.

In addition, the city will rent terminals from the companies for $7.5 million a year, with an automatic 10 percent increase every five years over the next 21 years. The rental agreement contains two 14-year extensions at the option of both the companies and the city.

The pact allows the MTA to start as early as next month operating the routes now being run by the Transit Alliance and its four affiliates, Green Bus Lines, Command Bus Co., Jamaica Buses and Triboro Coach. While the MTA plans to begin operating a few of the routes in June, the full takeover is not expected to be complete until later in the summer.

"I am very pleased we have reached an agreement with the Transit Alliance," said New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who hatched the plan to take over the private companies.

Although the city has tried off and on for 20 years to sever its relationship with the private bus operators, Bloomberg kicked the effort into overdrive just over two years ago. "This was the final round of negotiations and we now have agreements with all of the franchise bus operators," said the mayor.

The MTA earlier this year took over the routes operated by the other three private companies, Liberty Lines Express, Queens Surface Corp., and New York Bus Co. The seven companies were transporting about 400,000 daily commuters into Manhattan from the Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn under a series of contracts with the city, some of which dated back to 1974.

Bloomberg had maintained that the $100 million to $150 million the city was paying the private companies each year to operate the routes was too high and the service on many of the lines was not up to par. The companies, however, said they were saddled with 18- to 20-year old city-owned buses to use on the routes and the city refused to either replace them or keep them in good repair.

The private companies accused the city of allowing more than $150 million in federal money to sit in a bank account unspent in an effort to create the false impression that the operators and their employees were not doing a good job for the public.

Jerome Cooper, the long-time chairman of Transit Alliance, who spent 45 years working inr various capacities for the private companies, said the loss of the routes is tough to take. "It is going to be a sad day when we walk out after 100 years in business," he stressed.

He said he still does not fully understand what the city and mayor accomplished with their "hostile takeover."

"It certainly is going to cost much more than if the private lines had continued to operate," he asserts.

Cooper said the companies will remain in operation, but will no longer do transit work. Instead, Transit Alliance will maintain its paratransit services, offer bus repair work, and continue its bus shelter maintenance operation.

In addition, he said he hopes to be able to do consulting work. "I don't know if anyone will want to use our services, but I can certainly talk a lot about negotiations with municipalities," he noted.

Cooper's negotiations with the city, which sometimes became contentious, took a series of twists and turns as the city pushed for the takeover and the private companies fought to keep the contracts. The issue found its way to the state legislature, spilled into the courts and even triggered threats of a strike by drivers.

In the end, after state lawmakers refused to approve any of the city proposals, the MTA had to create a separate affiliate - MTA Bus - in which the city could transfer the routes. The MTA said it plans to add a number of new buses to the routes when it begins serving them.