Introducing the MetroCard Challenge
With all of talk swirling about $2 base fares and Unlimited Ride MetroCard cost increases, I thought it would be fun to see just how much per ride I pay for my 30-day Unlimited Ride MetroCard each month. I take at least two rides a day during the work week as I commute to and from my job. I lead a fairly active social life as well. Since I started a new card on Wednesday, this month is a great time for my experiment. I’ll update my data - which you’ll find in the center column at top - each day and chart my progress. My guess is that I get a pretty sweet deal.
That’s a great idea!
Last Monday I was off from work which resulted in my doing more of the school commute rides with my kids on and off Roosevelt Island. Between those trips and a dinner in Manhattan that night I made 8 fare trips in that single day. For me the unlimited monthly card is always the right decision.
Hi,
For people trying to maximize their pay as you go metrocards you can use this handy calculator at http://metrocardcalculator.com
Do you want the price to drop even further? Ask (no, demand) that your employer offer transit benefits such as TransitChek. Through these programs, the price of your monthly transit (it can be a MetroCard, commuter rail or even - shudder - car parking) is deducted from your pay PRE-TAX. In my case, I only pay $43.64 for my 30-day MetroCard (the difference in take-home pay between the check from which it’s deducted and the check without the deduction). Were I to only commute with the card, assuming 20 working days a month my per-trip cost is ONLY $1.16!! And of course I use it much more than that - on a conservative estimate of 2 additional roundtrips a week my per trip cost goes down to 86 cents per ride. Can’t beat it.
I’m contract, but I wish I could do TransitChek. Under $45 a month for my unlimited would be tremendous. But if you simply want to calculate what the per-trip cost is or per-swipe cost, simply take your monthly unlimited once it’s expired and bug the booth attendant to tell you how many ‘passes’ registered on it. As far as I’m concerned, that’s one more thing those MTA employees are paid to do. Of course you’ll never request this without the booth attendant telling you ubiquitously what you’re already aware of: ‘This card has expired’. ‘Yes, I know that’, I follow with, ‘but I’d like to know how many passes it had for that month’.
Typically for me, a 9-to-5 commuter who rides on weekends too, I get some 80ish clicks a month, or roughly a buck a ride. My record high was 116 I think. But that was within my first six months in the city, and no doubt many of those occurred simply due to screwing up and taking the wrong train.
TransitChek is a great idea, when they deliver your card. I don’t know who to blame. I signed up for it through work and they were supposed to deliver my card. Three months went by, and I never got a card.
My suspicion is that they are either really bad at customer service, or someone was stealing the card out of my mailbox. Probably the latter.