Archive for Fare Hikes
Sep
13
The impending circus with a MetroCard at stake
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MTA Board members are gearing up for another round of public abuse. (Photo by flickr user azipaybarah)
Whenever the MTA is facing a fare hike, the authority’s board must partake in a charade that most transit advocates consider to be akin to a circus. At public locations throughout the Metropolitan Commuter Transportation District, MTA Board members and agency presidents will subject themselves to countless hours of public abuse as the uninformed masses heap insults upon them. Straphangers, disgruntled workers and grandstanding New York City politicians will take to the mic to gain political points without adding to the discourse, and the MTA is expected to both take it without response and turn public unrest into coherent policy.
This time around, though, the circus has a point for the way we ride rests in the balance. As we learned in July, this year’s fare hike proposal came with a huge hitch: The MTA may very well do away with the Unlimited ride MetroCard. To combat the fact that the average fare today is lower, in inflation-adjusted dollars, than what we paid in 1996, the authority has proposed to cap the unlimited ride cards and eliminate the one- and 14-day cards. The overall proposal looks a little something like this with a $1 surcharge on new cards added as well:
| Pass Type | Current Fare | Unlimited Proposal | Capped Proposal |
|---|---|---|---|
| 30-Day Card | $89 | $104 | $99/90 trips |
| Fare Per Trip | |||
| 59 rides | $1.51 | $1.76 | $1.68 |
| 90 rides | $0.99 | $1.16 | $1.1 |
| 110 rides | $0.81 | $0.94 | N/A |
| 7-Day Card | $27 | $29 | $28/22 trips |
| Fare Per Trip | |||
| 16 rides | $1.69 | $1.81 | $1.75 |
| 22 rides | $1.23 | $1.32 | $1.27 |
| 30 rides | $0.90 | $0.97 | N/A |
There is, of course, a third proposal that made waves last month. The MTA could institute a scheme where they offer capped and uncapped cards, and the truly unlimited cards could cost around $130 for 30 days. It isn’t a Doomsday scenario, but it’s a big blow to the psyche of New York’s straphangers long used to riding the rails as often as they want for under $100 a month. Even if the $130 scenario doesn’t come to pass — “It’s not going to happen,” Andrew Albert of the NYC Transit Riders Council said — the costs will go up.
Enter the fare hike hearings. In the past, I’ve subjected myself to these hearings, a fate I wouldn’t wish upon anyone, and I’ll likely attend a part of the hearing in Brooklyn next week. They are, to say the least, tedious affairs. They start with the politicians who think they are too important to sit through the hearing and must be heard while people are paying attention. These electeds — the same people who voted to remove $143 million in earmarked money from the MTA’s coffers — will point fingers as “fat cat Board members” and anyone but themselves. It is a lesson in deflecting blame.
Then, the union leaders and disabled riders will bemoan the way the MTA dumps on them. While some of the complaints are valid, the point of the hearings is not to create a free-for-all. The authority is interested in raising the fares by 7.5 percent in a way it and the public think is fair for all. No one likes fare hikes, but they’ve become an evil of the New York City subway system.
Instead of this circus, then, New Yorkers should defend the way we ride. The Unlimited Ride cards ushered in a new golden age of sorts underground. People ride more often than they used to and have come to rely on the subways for shorter rides. It’s easier to justify a two-stop trip when the MetroCard was bought and paid for two weeks ago, and the ride itself actually helps to reduce the average cost of a swipe. To maintain ridership, to maintain the role of the subways as the desired method for travel, Transit should encourage people to ride, and to do that, the Unlimited ride cards should not be cut.
Starting tonight, then, New Yorkers should stand up for their Unlimited ride cards. The MTA Board has to vote on two competing proposals later this month, and they haven’t decided yet which one to implement. If enough people speak up, we’ll keep our unlimited ride cards for a few dollars more. Maybe 90 rides would be enough for everyone, but as soon as straphangers start counting their swipes, the subways seem more like a luxury and less like a vital part of everyday life. Only the circus can save these cards this time around.
After the jump, the full information about the nine upcoming fare hike hearings. Read More→
Aug
30
Combating congestion through variable-rate tolling
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While calls to toll the East River crossings have stalled in New York State, the MTA may have hit upon a partial solution to some forms of congestion in its latest fare hike proposal. As WNYC’s Matthew Schuerman noted late last week, the authority has issued two plans for its bridges and tunnels: One would see rates increase evenly across the board while another would penalize non-E-ZPass users more than it would those with the electronic payment tags.
The options — as the MTA presents them here — are simple. If rates are raised evenly across the board, tolls will increase from anywhere from 25¢ to 50¢ with the one-way toll across the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge going up by $1. The E-ZPass rates would increase by approximately 10 percent across the board.
Another plan, though, earning less play on the MTA’s website is summarized thusly: “If tolls were raised only for Cash and non-NYS E-ZPass customers, this would result in a $7.00 toll at Major Crossings ($14 at the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge), $4.50 at the Henry Hudson Bridge and $4.00 at Minor Crossings.”
Scheruman spoke with MTA officials about the rationale behind this plan. He reports:
The new idea, according to MTA spokesman Kevin Ortiz, is meant to encourage people to use E-ZPass, cutting down on congestion at toll plazas and the pollution that comes with it. The proposal means that E-ZPass users from elsewhere on the Atlantic seaboard who occasionally pass through New York would end up paying 53 percent more. They currently qualify for the $4.57 E-ZPass rate.
AAA New Jersey opposes any sort of variable tolling, according to spokesman Stephen Rajczyk. “It shouldn’t matter if you are an out-of-state driver or an E-Z Pass driver,” he said. “You could say the people who use it all the time maybe should be paying more for it because they are using it all the time.”
The MTA says that you don’t have to be a resident of New York State to get a New York State E-ZPass—you simply have to apply for a tag from the New York State E-ZPass Service Center. And in fact, drivers who use tags from the Port Authority would qualify for the discount, according to MTA Bridges and Tunnels spokeswoman Joyce Mulvaney. About 75 percent of drivers who use MTA’s bridges and tunnels use E-ZPass; 70 percent use New York State tags.
This variable-rate plan is a sure sign of economic protectionism by the MTA. First, they would be foisting off more of the costs on out-of-state users who don’t pay taxes to New York State (and thus, aren’t contributing to the MTA’s coffers through the state treasury). With this variable-rate plan, drivers would either have to pay to purchase a New York State E-ZPass tag with a $25 prepayment charge or be willing to fork over more dollars for tolls.
Second, this plan serves as a de facto congestion-reducing proposal. By raising the rates at tolled roads, the MTA will discourage some — but not all — drivers. Unfortunately, however, the MTA doesn’t have a monopoly on tolled river crossings. They can raise rates at the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel and the Queens-Midtown Tunnel, but the Queensboro Bridge and Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges will remain untolled. Thus, any toll increase could have the unwanted result of foisting more traffic onto local roads that lead into the free crossings and contributing to the negative side effects of increased congestion.
The MTA’s various hearings on these toll proposals and their slate of fare increases are set to begin in two weeks from tonight. For a full list of hearing times and locations, visit this site.
Aug
27
Will Connecticut help pay for cheaper Metro-North fares?
Posted by: | CommentsDue to a series of complicated agreements between Metro-North, New York and Connecticut, our fair neighbor to the east may soon be paying the commuter railroad to keep down costs. Because Connecticut Department of Transportation can help Metro-North set fare rates, when the MTA implements a fare hike early next year, tickets to and from Rye and Port Chester would be more expensive than those from the nearby Greenwich station. Thus, riders would be encouraged to head to Connecticut to travel.
To avoid this situation, Metro-North is working with ConnDOT to control the fares. Martin B. Cassidy of the Connecticut Post has more:
Because of Connecticut’s decision to avoid New Haven line fare increases this year, Metro-North is seeking an agreement to lessen the effect on Port Chester and Rye riders by having Connecticut pay Metro-North the difference between the cost of a Greenwich and Port Chester, ticket.
The agreement, often called a “hold-down” fare agreement, assures that price levels remain even across state lines, as Connecticut chooses to put off fare increases, Anders said. Under the agreement, the state would pay Metro-North a certain amount for each monthly ticket sold at the Port Chester or Rye stations, thereby keeping the price of a monthly ticket at Rye and Port Chester to $237, Anders said.
Connecticut’s monthly payments would be calculated on total ticket sales at those stations, Anders said, including subsidies for all forms of peak and off-peak tickets. Metro-North Railroad is currently finalizing a similar agreement with New Jersey Transit, Anders said. “Finally when Connecticut DOT raises fares, Metro-North would then adjust the Rye and Port Chester, fare to $247 and the hold-down payments would stop,” Anders said.
While it’s clear that New York riders and Metro-North would benefit, Connecticut politicians are wary of the hold-down agreement. Connecticut Rail Commuter Council Chairman Jim Cameron says Metro-North is just trying to back-door its way to a fare hike. “These changes are really no more than a hidden fare increase and they are not helpful in encouraging ridership on the trains,” Cameron said. “It looks as though the MTA are scrambling to find every nickel and dime they can, and doing a stealth fare increase like this will just discourage people from wanting to take the train.”
I can’t imagine anyone who takes the train would find it less desirably to pay more than to sit in traffic on the Merit and Hutch for hours on end two times a day, five days a week. I can certainly see why Connecticut might view this as some creative fare work by Metro-North.
Aug
24
The fear of a $130 unlimited MetroCard
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As the MTA gears up to host a slate of public hearings in September on the fare hike proposal, the Authority has officially released the details of the competing plans. Either the monthly MetroCard will have a rider cap or the cost will sneak past $100. The news coverage though has focused on a third proposal: the cost of a true unlimited ride card if the MTA were to adopt both fare options.
“Riders stunned by $130 monthly card!” says the Daily News. “Fare hike just got steeper!” NBC New York proclaims. There is but one problem, as MTA spokesman Aaron Donovan said to me, “This is not an official MTA proposal.”
The official fare proposals are pretty straightforward as the MTA works to raise fare revenues by 7.5 percent. The base fare — paid by just 14 percent of riders — will remain at $2.25, but disposable single-ride tickets will come with a 25-cent surcharge. All new MetroCards will come with a $1 fee, but the MTA says few, if any regular riders, will have to pay. I’ve also been told that Unlimited Ride cards will be refillable when this fee goes into effect as well.
“This is a charge that no one needs to incur: most everyone has a MetroCard in hand, which can be reloaded in system at no cost,” the authority said. “If the card has expired, MetroCard vending machines will offer to load any remaining value on a new card at no cost; passes will now be reloadable with time or value without cost; and the charge will not apply to out of system vendor sales, elderly/disabled customers, transit benefit organization customers, combination commuter railroad-MetroCard ticket users, or stolen cards.”
The pay-per-ride discount will be decreased from 15 percent for purchases of at least $8 to 7 percent of purchases of at least $10. Approximately 36 percent of subway riders use the pay-per-ride bonus, and these straphangers will see their effective base fare jump from $1.96 a ride to $2.10 per swipe.
The competing unlimited ride proposals — one with capped cards and one without — require a table:
| Pass Type | Current Fare | Unlimited Proposal | Capped Proposal |
|---|---|---|---|
| 30-Day Card | $89 | $104 | $99/90 trips |
| Fare Per Trip | |||
| 59 rides | $1.51 | $1.76 | $1.68 |
| 90 rides | $0.99 | $1.16 | $1.1 |
| 110 rides | $0.81 | $0.94 | N/A |
| 7-Day Card | $27 | $29 | $28/22 trips |
| Fare Per Trip | |||
| 16 rides | $1.69 | $1.81 | $1.75 |
| 22 rides | $1.23 | $1.32 | $1.27 |
| 30 rides | $0.90 | $0.97 | N/A |
The barely-used 14-day and 1-day MetroCards will be eliminated.
Now, these numbers weren’t chosen at random by the MTA. Rather, straphangers who use the unlimited card cards make, on average, 59 trips over the 30-day span and 16 trips on the seven-day cards. Transfers would not count against the cap, and the authority explains the reasons behind the two proposals. “An unlimited pass provides the convenience of not having to consider the number of trips, but has a higher price,” it said. “The capped pass would limit the total number of trips that can be taken, but with a smaller fare increase.”
The $130 figure — which has scared and scarred New York subway riders — came about because the MTA Board asked the authority to include a joint proposal on the fare hike hearing materials. How much would it cost to include both a capped option and true unlimited ride card? Since the MTA wants to limit fraudulent uses of the unlimited MetroCards and ensure that the heaviest of users are shouldering their fair share of the fare burden, the $130 amount was released as an estimate. “To ensure maximum flexibility for the Board in making its determination, and to encourage robust public discourse, the public notice of fare and toll adjustments provides some leeway to allow for the adoption of other alternative pricing combinations,” Donovan told me.
Still, as the people protest, one MTA Board member doubts the agency will embrace such a high figure simply due to sticker shock. Even if most people wouldn’t need or have to pay the $130 card, that the idea exists could be a blow to what little faith the public has in the MTA. “It’s not going to happen,” Andrew Albert said to The Post.
It makes for a good headline, but when all is said and done, we’ll be facing capped cards that cost less than $100, for now, or an uncapped card that require us to fork over $100 a deal. The $130 card elicits fear that is unwarranted. For now, these monthly options are still good deals, but the prices just keep on going up, up, up as the authority tries to avoid more service cuts.
Let’s end this one with a poll. Pick your poison.
Would you rather:
Aug
23
Amidst fare hikes and cuts, finding other ways to travel
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Before the service cuts went into effect, subway ridership had been on the rise.
Riding the subways in New York City is oftentimes not a pleasant experience. Straphangers wait (for too long) on station platforms that are too hot and too crowded for trains that are too stuffed with fellow commuters. As the MTA had to cut services in June and must raise fares again in January just to maintain service as its current level, some former straphangers are finding other ways to travel.
In amNew York today, Sheila Anne Feeney highlights three travelers who have given up on the subways and, in the grand fashion of The Times Styles Section, tries to turn those three commuters into a trend. These three, she says, are representative of an “underground movement” whose members are looking for stress-free, environmentally friendly and cost-efficient ways of getting to and from work. She writes:
“Being outside and being in control of the destiny in your commute gives you a better outlook on the whole day,” said Michael Auerbach, 26 [of Upper Green Side], who bikes 10 miles from his Greenpoint home to his job on the Upper East Side. He appreciates saving $4.50 a day almost as much as he loves compressing his three-train, 50-minute commute into an invigorating half-hour.
Tracking a boost in walking is elusive, but there was a 221 percent rise in bicycle commuters between 2000 and 2009, to 15,495, with Brooklyn leading, according to the NYC Commuter Cycling Indicator.
New Yorkers resort to a step schlep or pedal push for a variety of reasons: Fare hikes, for example, “always give a bump to bike commuting,” said Noah Budnick, deputy director of Transportation Alternatives. Many people, too, said they resent being held hostage in increasingly crowded trains and buses.
Another attorney Feeney found walks three miles each way to and from her office, stopping at a nearby gym to shower. I’d have to believe these commuters may find their alternate commutes less invigorating as temperatures drop over the winter. Still, that some people are fed up with the service and conditions underground is a timeless tale in the annals of New York’s subway history.
New Yorkers, though, shouldn’t be worried about the walkers and the bikers. For as long as I can remember, my dad, who works a little over two miles from my parents’ apartment, walked when the weather was warm — but not too warm. He enjoys the 40-minute jaunt to the office and did so when subway fares consisted of tokens and a ride cost $1.25. As long as the city encourages biking and sidewalks exist, people will always bike or walk over shorter distances.
The people we should worry about though are the ones who eschew transit for cars. They’re the ones who think their rides are too long, who no longer have direct and convenient bus service to work or a nearby subway stop, who can’t stand how packed the trains are even four or five stops away from a terminal. The riders who switch to cars for the perceived convenience of it and to escape the grind of the subway will contribute to the congestion that cripples our area both economically and environmentally, and a future with more cars on the road is what we must try to avoid.
The MTA is, of course, stuck. As it has done so four times in the past seven years and will again be doing come January 1, the MTA is raising the rates on its fares just to keep service levels constant. To avoid a fare hike in 2009, the authority had to slash service across the board, and as wait times become longer and trains both more crowded and less frequent, the ridership levels will dip. Even an increase of just a handful of cars on the road can prove very costly, and the MTA — that main driver of transit in New York City — is in no position to staunch its economic bleeding.
Those commuters who leave the subway system for bikes contribute to no problems. It’s the people who live far away and can’t tolerate the subways that represent the real underground movement of disgruntled commuters, and the carrots to lure them back to transit are nowhere to be found.
Aug
03
With the fare hike, anticipating a small ridership drop
Posted by: | CommentsIn the months prior to the June service cuts, the MTA saw its ridership increase for the first time since the recession hit. Now, however, forces are gathering against the authority, and with the cuts in place and fare hikes coming our way in January, the authority believes it will see a slight decline in ridership come 2011.
As Pete Donohue reports in the Daily News, the MTA expects 16 million fewer trips in 2011 than in 2010, a decline in subway ridership of approximately 0.7 percent. The authority believes a rebounding New York economy will dampen the impact of the fare hike as the projected 66,000 new jobs will lead to more transit use. “Because we are cautiously optimistic about the recovery of New York’s economy, we expect the fare increase to cause a very small decrease in ridership,” Jeremy Soffin, MTA spokesman, said to Donohue.
Still, despite the improving economy, if the MTA opts to limit the currently unlimited MetroCards, the ridership drop could be larger than expected. Those riders on a budget who currently enjoy unlimited transportation won’t swipe as often as they do now and may take fewer trips for pleasure. The hikes though will see the authority’s revenue take increase significantly. “Poor people and people of modest means count their trips more often after a fare hike, and they’ll cut out some nonwork trips,” Straphangers guru Gene Russianoff said.
Jul
28
In a four-year plan, fare hikes and labor concessions abound
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At its meeting this morning, the MTA Board voted to move forward on a plan to raise fares and tolls while slashing the number of station agents employed across the city. As the MTA has both the legal right and the economic need to raise fares in 2011, the vote was both expected and contested with transit advocates and labor officials protesting outside.
At the meeting, CEO and Chairman Jay Walder put forward the MTA’s four-year budget plan. The authority does not plan to cut services further. However, to ensure that the budget stays on pace, the MTA will enact significant fare hikes in both 2011 and 2013 and will ask for major concessions from its employees.
To move forward with the fare hikes, the authority will host a series of citywide public hearings in September before voting on a final package of fare hikes in October. The authority will decide, based upon public input, whether to limited the unlimiteds or simply raise the fares a few dollars more. Only around three percent of all subway riders exceed the proposed limit of 90 trips in a 30-day period.
As part of the comprehensive plan — and the MTA’s four-year budget outlook — the authority also hopes to rein in work rules and labor spending that it says are out of control. With major union contracts expiring over the next few years, the authority will attempt to institute a wage freeze while curtailing overtime spending and benefit costs. Although labor unions called this a “fantasy agenda,” MTA CEO and Chairman Jay Walder is set on exacting productivity gains or wage controls on the unions. The MTA will also eliminate more than 3400 administrative positions, and the Board voted to dismiss 200 station agents today as well after complying with a judicial order to hold new public hearings on the proposal.
“The foundation of this [Four-Year] Plan is the most aggressive and comprehensive overhaul in the history of the MTA,” Walder said. “These actions have allowed us to hold true to our commitment regarding fare increases while maintaining the quantity and quality of service that New Yorkers rely on every day. The State’s ongoing fiscal crisis is one of many risks to the Plan, but with continued hard work and the participation of our labor unions I believe that this Plan can be achieved.”
Already, battle lines are being drawn, and TWU President John Samuelsen made the first charge. He criticized Walder’s $350,000 salary. “It’s utterly ridiculous,” Transport Workers Union Local 100 Samuelsen said. “It’s hypocritical, and it has to end. “Go after your own paycheck. Go after your own benefits.”
Samuelsen is, in effect, ignoring the real issues. Instead of working with the MTA to identify cost savings and putting pressure on Albany to help reform public transit funding (and MTA oversight), Samuelsen is highlighting a red herring. The MTA is $800 million in debt, and Walder’s salary, relatively low for an organization the size of the MTA, is needed to attract talented transit planners — instead of politically appointed real estate cronies — to run the MTA. Additionally, Samuelsen’s salary far outstrips that of MTA workers as well.
I’ll delve more into the MTA’s financial outlook later tonight. But for now, we know what’s in store for the authority. It is saddled with debt and runaway spending costs. Its leaders have vowed to avoid service cuts for the next few years, but to ensure that service remains the same, both the riders and the MTA’s employees at all levels will have to pay. Until serious funding reform efforts are under way, year-by-year budgetary living will be the way of economic life at the MTA, and for that, the millions of New York straphangers will pay more and more at the turnstile.
Jul
27
For the right price, unlimited cards could stay that way
Posted by: | CommentsFor the last few weeks, we’ve heard all about the MTA’s plans to cap the number of rides available on the so-called unlimited MetroCards, and earlier this morning, I discussed how the authority may eliminate the one- and 14-day cards. As more details have emerged today, the MTA may not axe those unlimited cards after all. According to a report in The Post, the authority will consider two proposals: one in which the unlimited ride cards become limited and another in which the cards cost more but stay unlimited.
According to Tom Namako, the two plans will look a little something like this: The weekly card could increase slightly from $27 to $28 but with a 22 ride cap or it could go to $29 with no cap. The 30-day card would increase from $89 to $99 with a 90-ride cap or it could go to $104 with no cap. The MTA also says it will lower the pay-per-ride volume discount from 15 percent to a mere seven percent and will also attempt to negotiate no-raise provisions into its expiring labor contract.
The final fare proposal will emerge after public hearings in September or October, but I would urge the MTA to maintain limitless subway rides on the unlimited cards. Even if most people do not use the cards to a full 90 rides, there’s something to be said for encouraging transit use without requiring customers to keep an eye on their ridership volumes. That said, if a 90-ride cap is met by day 28 and the cap serves to counter MetroCard fraud, it may yet be a worthwhile proposal.
Jul
27
In fare hike plan, more unlimited cards get the axe
Posted by: | Comments When word of the impending MTA fare hike leaked out earlier this month, the headlines concerned unlimited ride cards. Once responsible for revolutionizing the way New Yorkers use mass transit, these cards are set to become limited in January 2011. Now, we learn that a few unlimited ride options may be on the chopping block.
According to WNYC’s Matthew Schuerman, the MTA is going to propose the elimination of the one-day fun pass and the 14-day card as part of its slate of fare hikes. The one-day card, transit officials say, is most prone to abuse by scammers while the 14-day card just hasn’t seen wide-spread use as the Straphangers Campaign, influential in promoting the idea, had hoped. “I can’t say I feel great,” Gene Russianoff said. “I had hoped that we would be helping people who could do better than a seven-day card and I’m sad that we didn’t convince more New Yorkers to use it.”
Schuerman had more on the demise of these various fare options and the history of the one-day Fun Pass, aimed initially at tourists:
Former Gov. George Pataki included the Fun Pass as part of an array of unlimited MetroCards that the MTA introduced back in 1998. At first, it was only sold at tourist locations. But the MTA quickly expanded Fun Pass distribution so that ordinary New Yorkers could also take advantage of unlimited rides for one day.
But transit sources say the one-day Metrocard never really caught on and now accounts for less than 1 percent of all fares paid. They say the Fun Pass also has a sinister side: scammers stand at turnstiles and sell swipes off of them for $2 as people come through. The scammers buy them in bulk so they don’t have to re-use any of them more than once every 18 minutes—the time lag the cards are programmed for. Over the course of a day, each one could be used dozens of times, at great profit to the scammer, while the MTA only receives the $8.25 face value of the card.
The MTA also wants to get rid of the 14-day MetroCard, first offered in 2008 to provide low-income riders better value than a weekly card without requiring them to shell out as much as a 30-day pass requires. But only 2 percent of straphangers use the card, and transit sources say that the other fare changes that will be proposed this week will make the 7-day card a relatively good deal. (The cost of the 7-day card will go up a dollar or two, while the price of a monthly will go up $10 or $11.)
For the Fun Pass to work, those riders who use pay-per-ride cards with the discount must take five or more trips per day, and most New Yorkers simply do not ride the subways that often. According to the MetroCard market share table from May 2010, only 0.9 percent of MetroCard trips were made with a one-day pass. That low figure also seems to contradict the MTA’s claims of widespread fraud.
The 14-day cards were, by and large, useless. Currently priced at $51.50, they’re cost-efficient only when compared with the $27 seven-day cards, and they pro-rate to over $110 for 30 days. By making the week-long cards a better deal, the MTA can hope to target lower-income users as the Straphangers originally wished to do. As Schuerman notes, only two percent of riders used the two-week cards anyway, and that figure had been static since they were first introduced.
By 2011, the fare hikes will have outstripped inflation by nearly 25 percent since Unlimited MetroCards made their entrance into the subway scene in 1998, and now, New Yorkers will have fewer options as well. Two percent may seem insignificant but nearly 150,000 commuters just found out that their preferred method of fare payment will no longer be an option come January. When flexibility is king, fewer choices is not the way to go.
The MTA will debate the contours of these proposals at its board meeting tomorrow morning. Due to my work schedule, I won’t be able to attend, but you can watch live right here beginning at 9:30 a.m. The presentation on the MTA’s finances and the fare hikes proposal is currently the last item on the meeting’s agenda.
Jul
19
To fix a fiscal problem, unlimited cards become limited
Posted by: | Comments For over 12 years, the MTA has been giving away transit trips. When it was introduced back in 1997 and put into circulation in 1998, the unlimited ride MetroCards revolutionized transportation in New York City, but it also drastically lowered the cost straphangers pay per ride. Now, facing a massive budget deficit, the MTA plans to scale back its unlimited ride cards, and the riding public isn’t going to be happy.
The problem is simply one of economics. By charging people a flat rate for a week’s or a month’s worth of subway and bus rides, the MTA is both encouraging use and fiscal abuse. All of a sudden, rides that we wouldn’t make — a two-stop ride to avoid the rain or midtown crowds — are worthwhile because those trips lower the per-trip cost of an unlimited MetroCard.
While more New Yorkers are taking the subway now than at any time since the automobile age, the MTA is making less per ride than they were 15 years ago. In fact, in April 2010, the average non-student fare across subways and buses — and accounting for higher express bus rates — came in at $1.48. In nominal dollars, that’s just ten cents higher than the average 1996 fare of $1.38, and in constant 1996 dollars, the April total was $1.02, a whopping 36 cents less per ride than we paid in 1996 when tokens were the currency of the subway.
Now, as The Times and the Wall Street Journal both detail today, the MTA is trying to combat this money lost to inflation. Andrew Grossman of The Journal uses a messenger service to make the point. Once, messenger services used bicycles to navigate New York, but as the cost of a subway ride decreased and worker’s comp insurance increased, these messengers turned to the subway. Some use as many as 20 MetroCard swipes per day, and they average around 20 cents per ride. Under the new scheme, they would go through a 30-day/90-ride card in under a week.
A Wall Street Journal graphic shows how MetroCard prices are outpacing inflation.
Grossman’s is an extreme example, but it’s clear how the MTA views this fare hike. Although the entire package of fare hikes should generate a 7.5 percent increase in fare revenue, frequent riders who the MTA feels do not carry their share of the funding burden are going to have to pay more. These fare increases, too, are outpacing inflation as well, and in The Times, Michael Grynbaum focuses on how the MTA is cutting service and raising fares amidst a recession.
The MTA is doing away with most bulk discounts and plans that incentivize better transit use. The 30-Day MetroCard will probably sit at $99, just under that psychologically important $100 mark, and off-peak fares on Metro-North and LIRR would be reduced. “Most board members would prefer we don’t just raise everything 7.5 percent,” Mitchell Pally, an MTA Board representative from Long Island, said to The Times. “Yes, we want to raise more revenue, but we don’t want to discourage ridership.”
Others in planning positions at the authority recognize the pickle in which the MTA currently finds itself. They’re trying to figure out how best to adjust fares so as not to discourage riding. “It doesn’t take much to dissuade people who are newly arrived to go back to their old ways if the economic incentives are not as good as they once were,” James Blair, the Metro-North riders’ representative to the MTA Board, said.
Therein lies the rub. The MTA just engaged in a very public plan to cut service. Two subway lines and countless bus stations got the axe, and just six months later, the authority will start to charge more for less. In the past, when fare hikes have come with service increases, the public has grudgingly accepted the higher rates, but I wonder how straphangers will respond this time. Will they hold their elected representatives responsible for abdicating their transit funding responsibilities? Will they turn to their cars and bikes while turning away from the subway system? And will these increases be enough to save a debt-ridden public transit system? Even as I ask the questions, I remain skeptical of the public’s willingness to pay more for less and less and less.
