While Senate Republicans are waiting for a call from Gov. Paterson in an effort to save the MTA, no one is too optimistic that any sort of acceptable plan will pass the Senate before next Wednesday. So with just six days left until the MTA Board is set to vote on its Doomsday budget proposal, word of the transit authority’s proposed new fare structure has hit the press.
The news is, of course, not very promising. A single fare will go up 25 percent to $2.50, and 30-day Unlimited Ride cards, while still a good deal, would pass the century mark. Shockingly, MTA Board members are calling this fare hike “the lesser of two evils.” Daily News transit beat reporter Pete Donohue has the story:
The price of a single subway or bus ride will soar from $2 to $2.50 under a menu of new fares the MTA is expected to adopt next week.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is on the verge of raising fares for millions of daily subway, bus and commuter train riders that would go into effect if the state doesn’t come through with a rescue plan. The MTA board’s finance committee is expected to approve the new fares Monday, followed by a full board vote Wednesday. Hikes are needed for the authority to have a required balanced budget and would take effect June 1, officials have said.
Under the proposal most board members appear to favor, the price of a monthly MetroCard would rise by $22 to $103. A weekly unlimited-ride MetroCard would jump by $6 to $31. The board is leaning against another set of proposed hikes that would jack up the $2 base fare to $3 and eliminate the 15% bonus on cash-based MetroCards valued at $7 or more.
“It really is the lesser of two evils,” MTA board member Allen Cappelli said. “Nobody wants to make these changes.”
NY1 had a few more details on the proposed fare schedule. Riders who stick with the pay-per-ride model will still earn a 15 percent bonus for all purchases over $7. That discount brings the actual cost of a pay-per-ride card down to $2.17.
Basically, these numbers are the same as those from November. At the time, the MTA hinted that fares could cover only half of the projected deficit. The other half will come from massive service cuts and personnel reductions. The details of those plans have yet to be announced.
With a $2.50 base fare, transit is slowly getting more and more expensive in New York City. Twenty years ago, a token cost $1.00. Ten years ago, the base fare sat at $1.50. Fares are now far out pacing inflation. Meanwhile, the East River bridges remain unnecessarily free.
One day, someone with the political will and power to do so will save the MTA. It doesn’t like that day will be any time this year though, and across the city, straphangers will have to soon budget for a $103 monthly MetroCard.
15 comments
I’m with you on the bridges, but the base fare is irrelevant. The correct comparison is the average price of a pay-per-ride, which will be $2.17, or the average price of an unlimited monthly, which will be $1.87. $1.00 in 1987 had the same purchasing power as $1.87 today, so the fare hike will increase the fare for the average unlimited monthly commuter to what it was in 1987.
I don’t think that works for the 1999 numbers though because then we had a better pay-per-ride discount and far cheaper unlimited ride options.
Well, prices just crashed after the introduction of the MetroCard. First, the bus-to-subway transfers halved fares for people in Eastern Queens. Then the pay-per-rides reduced fares by 9.1%. Then the unlimited monthlies reduced fares by another 16% for people swiping 55 times a month. In real terms, fares went down by 30% between 1987 and 2003. The fare hikes of the last 6 years are simply a return to trend.
I still wish that they would charge $3 for Single Rides, since most of them are usually tourists or just transients who are using the system for a couple days before they leave. The vast majority of regular New Yorkers have a MetroCard and should be smart enough to try and take advantage of the bonuses and unlimiteds.
I think the numbers are actually better than what Alon said, because there were no free subway-bus transfers when the base fare was $1.
Oh, and I agree that the base fare should be $3 with deeper discounts for regular riders. It seems so obvious. I can’t understand why it hasn’t at least been mooted as a possibility.
Agreed. On the commuter railroads, three weeks worth of single-ride tickets, peak fare, is about the same cost as a monthly pass. Therefore, the monthly riders get about a 33% “bonus” (if you call it that) over individual tickets. However, the subways don’t do this — even with the 15% discount, a month worth of commuting (22 days) with the 15% bonus is about equal to a 30-day Metrocard.
This has nothing to do with filling the budget gap, just a common sense fare structure. Reward multi-ride cards more than single-ride, and reward daily commuters even further.
I think they should stop pussyfooting around, drop the 2.50 + unspecified menu of cuts nonsense, and just tell us what the fare has to be in order to prevent any cuts. Because cuts are simply unacceptable with a growing population and they know it. If it’s 3.00 and no more discounts, then that is what they should propose.
Some would say $3.00 is unacceptable, either… especially since such a hike would also entail some hike in pay-per-ride and unlimited monthly cost. If the pay-per-ride bonus returns to 20%, and the unlimited monthly cost remains 46 times the pay-per-ride cost, then we’re talking $2.50 with a pay-per-ride and $115 with an unlimited monthly.
Then they should make it clear to the public that “the lesser of two evils” comes with massive service cuts.
So why are they trying to expand the system when they can’t maintain and pay for the system we have now? Does this make any sense? The billions they are wasting on the 28 block Second Avenue stubway are creating this phony crisis. They don’t have the money because they chose not to have the money. And all of New York State is going to pay for the MTA’s corrupt practices. Sickening. Wake up, people!
Come back in June and see how “phony” the crisis is.
The capital budget and the operating budget are two separate entities. The capital budget is used to expand and improve the system, such as building the SAS, and the operating budget is for running the system that’s already in place. Since they’re two separate entities, the MTA can’t transfer money from one budget to the other. Therefore, the billions spent on the SAS has no affect on the operating budget, which what the MTA is trying to fix with fare hikes and service cuts.
Ariel – not technically true. Debt service on the capital budget (which is significant – the last capital budget was $20B) comes out of the operating budget.
So, capital expenditures do have an impact on operations and the ops budget – Peter is partially correct here.
The point is, they shouldn’t be two separate entities. This artificial division between capital and maintenance budgets is the main reason that we must endure these funding crises. All of New York is going to suffer financial hardship in perpetuity in order to fund projects that are ill conceived and dishonestly managed. When are we ever going to hear an honest price tag for the first phase of the SAS (maybe 6B by now!?) and an honest completion date (maybe 2019?!). Wake up, people!
The capital and operating budgets are separate for good reasons. Capital budgets are for things you build once and use for many years or forever. Operating budgets are used up continuously just to keep what you have. If you think the system does not need a capital budget, then you’re crazy. Just step into the wayback machine and look at the state of the system in the late 1960s.
It is true, as noted upthread, that debt service on previous capital budgets is a major contributor to the MTA’s current deficit. Those debts were approved by the legislature during the Pataki administration, as a way of avoiding the difficult decisions we are now facing.