MTA nickels and dimes commuters

 

Eyewitness News 

The MTA proposed an increase to the subway and bus fare to $2.90 by Labor Day.

It is a 15-cent increase from the current $2.75 base fare, and the first fare hike since 2019.

"A lot of the stations are still dirty," rider John Delaruz said. "They are not in commission as often. I don't see the benefit in raising the price right now."

Weekly MetroCards would increase a dollar to $34 and 30-day MetroCards would go up $5 to $132.

Express bus fare would increase a quarter to $7 and seven-day bus passes would increase $2 to $64.

This year's planned fare hike will be closer to the standard 4% increase, which is typically how much the fare goes up every other year, instead of 5.5% originally floated, thanks to Governor Kathy Hochul's budget.

However, a planned 5.5% toll revenue increase remains in place.

Straphangers were less than pleased with the proposed hike.

Even Executive Director of the MTA's Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee Lisa Daglian acknowledged that fare hikes are necessary to keep the transit system rolling.

"Improving the discount options for riders across the system, ensuring there is equity across increases so that those who can least afford them have access to more options is critical," Daglian said. "That includes raising eligibility to fair fares to 200% of the federal poverty level from the current 100% level."

The last fare increase on trains and buses was in 2019. There was not a fare increase in 2021 due to the pandemic.

In addition to buses and subways, fares on the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North would also go up by about 4%.

The MTA also anticipates that with congestion pricing, more commuters will want to take the subway and commuter rail.

Officials unveiled two possible scenarios for drivers. One rewards E-Z Pass users with a 6% increase, vs a 10% increase for tolls by mail. The other spreads the pain, with a 7% increase for both E-Z Pass and toll by-mail users.

Fare discounts for the poor?

From the Daily News:

Seniors and people with disabilities can get half-price reduced fares on the MTA. There is a case to be made for that: They are more likely to live on limited incomes and travel at nonpeak times — and may have difficulty walking distances.

But what about those on really limited incomes, the poor? In the same survey, we asked New Yorkers whether or not they favor offering half-price fares to low-wage workers. Nearly seven of 10 (69%) said they like the idea. Eighty-three percent of low-income New Yorkers favor it, including nearly three-quarters (73%) who strongly back the proposal.

Some smaller cities are already trying this. Madison, Wis., offers low-income bus passes to riders who certify that their incomes are at or below 150% of federal poverty guidelines. The Charleston Area Regional Transportation Authority offers reduced, low-income fares of $1, a 75-cent discount off the regular price per ride.

Applying these kinds of policies to the city’s mass transit system would require much more intensive planning to guard against abuses and negative impacts on rush-hour crowding and revenues, but we should start crunching the numbers.

If low-wage workers cannot afford to take a trip now, then the revenue loss might be small, and the main impact would be to increase ridership.

MTA fare hike breakdown

From AM-NY:

The MTA delivered a harsh blow to straphangers yesterday when it unveiled its four proposals for next year's fare hike, and virtually evert rider will feel the pinch regardless of which one is chosen.

Two of the four plans would leave the base MetroCard fare at its current $2.25 and shift much of the burden to weekly and monthly card buyers, hiking a monthly MetroCard to as high as $125 - a more than 20% jump from the current $104.

The other two plans would increase the base fare to $2.50 and spread increases across more options, such as increasing a single ride ticket to $2.75 from $2.50.

All four plans, each of would raise $277 million over a full year, also include a new $1 surcharge to buy a new MetroCard.

The MTA will hold eight public hearings in November for commuters to weigh in on the options, starting on Nov. 7.

The plans will then go before the MTA's board Dec. 19 with the approved proposal expected to go into effect March 1.

MTA chief Joe Lhota said that painful as they are, the hikes are unavoidable.

Judge's decision may hurt straphangers

From AM-NY:

Transit officials and advocates on Thursday blasted a state judge's ruling that an MTA tax is unconstitutional, saying it could lead to "devastating" service cuts and "radical" fare hikes if it is not reversed.

MTA chief Joe Lhota called Judge R. Bruce Cozzens Jr.'s decision to strike down a payroll tax "flawed," saying he expected it to be overturned on appeal. But he warned that if the state's appeals court upheld the ruling, it could lead to an annual $1.8 billion hole -- a 15% reduction -- in the fiscally challenged agency's budget, requiring service cuts and larger than anticipated hikes.

On Wednesday, Cozzens said the Payroll Mobility Tax, which charges employers 34 cents for every $100 of payroll, was unconstitutional because it "does not serve a substantial state interest." He said state legislators should have gotten the OK of local municipalities to pass the law, or get two-thirds approval, which didn't happen.

On Thursday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said, "we believe the ruling is wrong and we believe the ruling is going to be reversed."

The decision was received warmly by businesses in counties, towns and villages in suburbs outside of New York City, which had argued that they did not directly benefit from MTA services.

You don't always get what you pay for

From the NY Post:

It’s no secret that commuters are likely to face steep MTA fare and toll hikes in 2013...and again in 2015 — but New Yorkers might also want to know how all that money is going to be spent.

Alas, they might not like the answer.

Because, as it turns out, every last penny from the fare and toll bumps will be gobbled up by the hungry hungry hippos of the Transport Workers Union.
That’s right: Even though the 7.5% fare and toll hikes will raise almost $1.9 billion cumulatively over the next four years, the cost of TWU benefits — including, notably, pensions — will surge by an alarming $2.4 billion over that same time span.

That’s about 26% more than the fare hike.

In other words, all your extra fare and toll dollars will go into the union’s already well-padded retirement and health-care accounts.

That was the painful message from an MTA official who spoke at the City Council’s Transportation Committee on Tuesday. He warned that even as straphangers are forced to dig deeper than ever, they won’t be getting any bang for their buck — or see any of the recently canceled bus and subway service restored.

Meanwhile, commuters will have to pony up: MetroCards are expected to shoot up to $167 a month by 2017, according to transit advocate Gene Russianoff — which is just a nose shy of $2,000 a year.

Bridge and tunnel tolls going up again

From NY1:

It was a little tough to hear above all the noise about subway and bus fare hikes at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's recent public hearings. However, drivers will also get caught in the agency's budget gap, when tolls go up next year.

"We've had two in the past 18 months, and we really think it's unfair to motorists," said Robert Sinclair, a spokesman for AAA of New York. "The tolls that are collected are about 300 percent of what it takes to maintain the facilities."

Given their deep financial hole, MTA officials say both transit fares and the tolls on its nine bridges and tunnels must go up, starting in January.

At the major crossings, the proposed cash toll would increase from $5.50 a trip to $6.

On smaller spans like the Marine Parkway and the Cross Bay, where the toll is now $2.75, the cash charge would go up to $3. The Henry Hudson Bridge will go from $3 to $3.50.

E-ZPass drivers, who get about a dollar discount on all the crossings, would face a 10 percent hike per trip.

AAA officials says drivers, socked with a new $50 vehicle registration fee as part of last year's MTA bailout, are a too-easy target.

"We are actually subsidizing mass transit, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but we think there needs to be some equity," says Sinclair.

Subsidized or not, transit advocates saying straphangers should not be asked to pay more and get less service. They have renewed their call to introduce tolls on the city's East River bridges. They also want to revive Mayor Michael Bloomberg's congestion pricing plan, which would charge drivers to enter much of Manhattan, probably below 96th Street, at the busiest times of the day.

AAA opposes both moves, which are out of the MTA's hands and up to the state Legislature.

MTA news roundup

From the Daily News:

Three months after imposing service cuts, the MTA moved closer to near-certain fare hikes on Monday night at the first of its two legally mandated public hearings.

Metropolitan Transportation Authority Chairman Jay Walder said he didn't see any way the January hikes to bus, subway and commuter fares would be averted.

Walder said there are no ongoing discussions between the MTA and Albany officials about increasing state subsidies for operations. Indeed, Gov. Paterson and the Legislature agreed to the January hikes to generate about $410 million - 7.5% of fare revenues - when enacting new transit-dedicated taxes last year.

It would be the third increase since 2008, an unprecedented one-two-three punch to riders. The Manhattan hearing drew a much smaller crowd than others in the past - about 150 people.

"People have gotten hip to the fact that these hearings are a sham," one woman shouted, calling for a straphanger revolution.

From the Daily News:

The MTA will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars training new bus drivers instead of bringing back some who were recently laid off, the Daily News has learned.

About 125 recruits are being hired from a list of job applicants, while some 185 drivers pink-slipped in June remain out of work, according to NYC Transit and union officials.

And one more from the Daily News:

AS PRIVATE van companies took over axed Queens bus lines starting this week, riders greeted the change with skepticism and some confusion.

The Q74 bus line that ran between Kew Gardens and the Queens College area was taken over by Commuter Transportation Systems on Monday.

On its inaugural day, only 20 people boarded the vans, said company owner Hector Ricketts.

The main problem is riders don't know the program exists, said David Yassky, head of the Taxi and Limousine Commission, which launched the pilot program to fill the service gap created by Metropolitan Transit Authority budget cuts.

"The biggest hurdle will be customer awareness and getting potential passengers to know the service is available," Yassky said.

More $ for MetroCard?

From Fox 5:

The cash-strapped Metropolitan Transportation Authority, with its $800 million budget shortfall, is reportedly looking to charge straphangers for buying a new MetroCard.

The NY Post reports the mass transit agency wants to raise money by imposing a $1 surcharge on new MetroCards.

The cards used by millions to travel the city's subways and buses are re-fillable at vending machines. The fee would be for a new card. Used and usually empty cards are often seen on the floor at subway stations.

In a statement issued Friday, the MTA said that it is sticking to an agreement with the state legislature that called for a 7.5% increase in revenues from MTA fares and tolls in January 2011.

Farebeaters cost us many millions

From the Daily News:

For years, NYC Transit has wildly underestimated how often riders beat the fare, which cheats the cash-crunched agency out of millions of dollars, the Daily News has learned.

Fare-beaters jump turnstiles or enter through emergency exit gates about 19 million times a year, a new agency analysis shows.

That's far more than the old estimate of about 5 million a year, which went out the window in April, when agency bean counters changed the way they tally scofflaws.

The lost revenue is staggering.

Fare-beating deprived NYC Transit of approximately $27 million last year alone, based on an average subway fare of $1.48, according to the new analysis.

Under the old method of estimating fare-beating, the agency believed it was losing about $7 million a year.

The lost revenue is even larger than the amount the Metropolitan Transportation Authority plans to save with subway service cuts that are scheduled to go into effect soon to help plug a large budget gap.

And the cops have cut back on arrests of farebeaters.

MTA eyes fare hike for this year

From the NY Post:

MTA brass are considering a fare hike as early as this year as they struggle to fill a $750 million budget gap, The Post has learned.

Increasing the cost of a ride on subways, buses and commuter rails in 2010 is just one option out of many that officials have put on the table to overcome the staggering deficit, management sources said.

"I think there is a set of options. And the fare is one of those as we try to get to the bottom line," a board member said.

"In view of the reaction we got to the service reductions we have out there, I think that asking most board members if they'd rather see more service cuts or a fare increase, I think, at the moment, many would pick a fare increase."

Last week, the MTA held a series of public hearings on a slew of service cuts and the elimination of free student MetroCards, which would save about $383 million.

That leaves an additional $378 million gap that has to be closed this year, because the state cut aid to the MTA, took money from its tax revenues, and miscalculated how much the agency would get in payroll tax revenues.

A 7 percent fare increase is already scheduled for 2011, and The Post reported last month that it could be higher.

The MTA said in a statement that it intends to stick to that 2011 schedule.

Subway ridership is really down

Another MTA fare hike on the way?

'Third fare hike' alarm
By DAVID SEIFMAN and TOM NAMAKO, NY Post

The new MTA chief yesterday wouldn't rule out another fare hike in 2010 -- which would mean a third consecutive year of increases hitting subway and bus riders.

"We don't know yet what the circumstances will be and I don't want to be in the range of conjecturing what's going to happen," said agency CEO Jay Walder.

He was responding to a Post question about whether Gov. Paterson's proposal to slash $115 million in aid to the MTA -- part of a larger plan to shore up the state's abysmal finances in 2009 -- would mean fare hikes are on the way.

"Clearly, there is a discussion taking place in Albany about what they need to do in terms of the deficit-reduction plan that will take place. And we will deal with all the circumstances as they come up," Walder said.

Earlier this year, riders and taxpayers tossed the MTA a $2.3 billion lifeline to prevent fares from rising 23 percent.

Group urges free MetroCard swipes

From the Indypendent:

It’s not often that anyone gets a free ride during a recession, but throughout the city, a growing program is giving out more than 600 subway MetroCard swipes each month.

In response to the economic recession and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s (MTA) fare hikes, community activists across the city are organizing the People’s Transportation Program (PTP), days where the goal is to swipe as many people through the turnstiles as possible with several daily unlimited MetroCards. Every third Saturday of the month, train riders in the Bronx, East Harlem, Queens and Brooklyn may walk into subway stations to find someone willing to pay their way.

Perhaps, surprisingly, the People’s Transportation System is not breaking the law. Individuals are free to share unlimited MetroCards, although they must wait 18 minutes between swipes for the card to reactivate.

“As long as they’re not charging people [for swipes], we can’t stop them from buying the cards and providing the service free to the people,” MTA spokesperson Paul Fleuranges told The Indypendent.

Gene Russianoff, director of the New York Public Interest Research Group’s Straphangers Campaign, said that roughly half of the revenue for the $6 billion annual budget for the city’s transit system comes from user fares alone. Russianoff, however, said it would take a lot of MetroCard sharing to make a dent in the revenue.

And by the way...the fare goes up tomorrow and the MTA will be broke for awhile.

Transit saved...hallelujah!

From NY1:

The MTA says that residents of the Rockaways and Broad Channel will continue to travel across the Cross Bay Bridge for free.

Also apparently off the table: elimination of W and Z trains, the J express and 8 Queens bus lines. But the fare will likely increase to $2.25. Dale Hemmerdinger's out, too.