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.
50 comments
I understand that MTA is having huge financial issues and so it has to raise its fares, but can’t they think up better solutions rather than just making it harder on everyone? I can understand that some people abuse the unlimited monthly passes, but I would venture to say that the vast majority of people who use them just do so because it is the best way to get around to everywhere they need to go. They should change it so that they sell one monthly pass with value for 90 rides on it at the current $89 price, then continue to sell an unlimited pass for $20 or $25 more. That way, MTA could raise revenues while still keeping the unlmited monthly pass option and giving an option to people who can’t afford that much of a fare hike or who don’t use the system as much.
…can’t they think up better solutions rather than just making it harder on everyone?
Absolutely! Tolling the East River bridges and congestion pricing were two much better ideas that the legislature rejected.
Absolutely not! In the 70s, when a steady revenue stream was also needed, we opted for allowing bridge and tunnel revenues to fund the subways. Did it work? No, because the MTA misappropriated the funds by giving too large a share for the rails and not enough for the subways and buses. Why should it be any different this time if tolls or congestion pricing is approved? There is no guarantee how the MTA will choose to use the money or if they will use it to increase or improve subway or bus service. Most likely they will still cry they need more money and those charges will just continue to increase every year or two just like the current tolls are doing, and service cuts will continue.
The key is to get them to be more responsive and more efficient even if that means a total restructuring or break-up of the MTA.
Amen to that. Many folks think adding a $10 a day burden on drivers will somehow translate into a windfall for MTA bus and subway riders. Billions of dollars have been wasted by this agency in the past, so let’s throw good money after bad. What a lot of people are looking for is for someone else to pay for their subway and bus service.
I’d be all for “congestion pricing” if: a) the money actually went directly to NYC transit bus and subway operations ONLY, and b) if the East River tolls were pegged to the cost of a one-way subway ride (currently $2.25). But socking “rich” drivers for $5 or $10 a day will translate into an $1100-$2200 hit per year, not exactly chump change. And there’s no guarantee that the MTA will spend this money wisely. In fact, the MTA already takes the SURPLUS money it makes off the Verrazano Bridge to fund Nassau County buses: http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news…..71229.html
Sorry, but the MTA gets enough of my money already. Drivers will fight this one tooth-and-nail, and for good reason.
Sorry, bad link. Here’s the good one:
http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news.....71229.html
Why do you put “rich” in quotes? People who drive every day into the congestion pricing zone during congestion pricing hours are indeed far richer than everyone else. The argument that drivers are already paying their fair share is wrong based on the costs driving exerts on the city and the benefits of a vibrant mass transit system.
Ben, you’re obviously biased in this arguement since you don’t own a car and have any of the associated expenses that go with it. The fact that a car owner makes $20k a year more than a subway rider doesn’t mean drivers should fork over $2200 a year more than they already do to subsidize your “vibrant” transit system. Lots of tax money goes toward things I’ve never used (bike lanes, welfare, public schools) but I don’t whine that my tax money is being taken from me to pay for these services. You more than anyone know that the MTA has been very highly subsidized by drivers going over its bridges and tunnels for 30 years now. This is why your subway ride is $2.25 and not $6.00. Now, after 30 years of MTA waste and abuse, you think that drivers should pay even more to subsidize bus and subway rides? Sorry buddy, but we’ll just have to agree to disagree, and I’ve already got my local politicians email addresses should Bloomy et al try to hoist this dead flag of an idea up the pole again.
PS: I put “vibrant” in quotes because I’ve heard the NYC subway called many things over the years (dirty, smelly, crowded, hot…) but never vibrant.
Do you honestly believe non-car owners don’t subsidize car travel? Surely you cannot. I have never owned a car, and yet I pay taxes to fund road construction/repair, defense operations in oil-rich nations, and billions of dollars in clean air/clean water cleanup costs caused by vehicles.
And again, you threw out 20k more for the car driver’s salary, but that is simply incorrect. As I’ve posted before, here are the facts:
http://www.tstc.org/reports/cpfactsheets.php
Scroll through the district reports and you find that car owning households make 150-300% more than non-car owning households, making the difference in salary between 30k (District 7) and 150k (District 4)on average, based on the district.
Really, what part of this is hard to understand? I couldn’t care less how much you think you’re subsidizing my driving to work. Do you really think drivers, no matter how much money they make, really want to part with another $2K a year so you can ride the subway for 50 cents than you do now? Whine all you want, cuss all you want. I work hard to make the money I do, and the latest political climate notwithstanding, I’d like to keep as much of my money as I can instead of pouring it down an MTA hole. Is that really so hard to understand?
Ben, since your blog is becoming a whine-athon, please remove my registration so I won’t be tempted to reply to every dumb ass posting.
People who disagree with you are neither whining nor dumbasses. Just because some people here disagree with your pro-car perspective and are explaining to you why doesn’t mean their views or yours are invalid or wrong. If you don’t want to engage in a civil debate, as others have, feel free not to. This blog doesn’t require registration and comments are open to all.
Feel free to not use the newly tolled bridges.
Oh, wait, you want to go to a job in Manhattan? Then suck it up and pay for the privilege of driving to *Manhattan*, which of all places in the world certainly doesn’t need more cars.
What would you say to tolling the East River bridges to pay for *Manhattan road upkeep*, since everyone using the bridges is causing Manhattan road damage?
That would allow money from Manhattan property taxes to stop paying for Manhattan road upkeep, and go to subway upkeep — since the subway is part of what keeps those property values in Manhattan so high (yes, there is strong evidence for this), this seems fair, doesn’t it?
I thought road construction funds come from the gasoline tax, not from the general fund, and for toll roads like the NYS Thruway, road improvements also come from the tolls also.
Not exactly. While the gas tax was envisioned as the sole funder of the Interstate Highway System, because the tax has not been increased since 1993, significant funds have had to be transferred from the General Treasury just to keep up with existing infrastructure demands.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09025/944323-85.stm
This says nothing of the billions spent by the states/cities/towns on roads, which generally come out of property taxes at the local level and the general treasury + gas tax at the state level.
Lastly, stimulus funding frequently goes toward road expansion/bridge repair/etc., as it did with the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
I don’t know how it breaks down on the local level in New York, but nationally, total government highway spending is just under $200 billion, whereas total gas tax and toll receipts (including those diverted to non-highway uses) are $130 billion.
A very large percentage of road construction and improvement funds in NYS come from general funds — much of which comes ultimately from local sales and property taxes (which fund the general funds in most localities).
The FHWA numbers which Alon pointed out show that about half of national road spending is from gas taxes and tolls, and the rest is subsidies from other sources. Furthermore those numbers almost certainly underestimate local government spending, since they warn that they don’t have hard numbers on it.
The Thruway does “pay for itself” through tolls; this is unusual. This is mostly from the long ticketed section where they have no problem raising tolls and people barely notice. The coin-throw sections tend to get shorted on maintenance…. wonder why….
In the 70s, when a steady revenue stream was also needed, we opted for allowing bridge and tunnel revenues to fund the subways. Did it work?
Sure it did. The investment from the early 1980s through today are what modernized the system and made it more reliable. That wouldn’t have been possible without the bridge and tunnel revenue — long used to fund transit — and signficant state contributions. The current problems started when voltaile real estate transfer taxes became the primary funding mechanism as the state cut direct contributions and when the state, as it did in late 2009, stole money that was supposed to go to the MTA for use in the New York General Fund. Taking money away from the MTA and refusing to fully fund mass transit just isn’t the way to go.
The bridge and tunnel revenue started funding transit in the late 60s at which point transit continued its decline for another decade plus. Ravitch got the state to commit money to capital plans that saved the subways nearly 2 decades after bridge and tunnel money was sent to transit. Only later, in the 90s, did Gov. Pataki start reducing the state’s commitment which is a contributing factor to the state of things today. MTA continues to get funding from bridge and tunnel revenue.
So my question is if any of the tolls are used to subsidize the subways and buses operating expenses or the portion that goes to the subways and buses goes to capital improvements, not that there is anything wrong with that. However, what if the MTA decides not to use money from congestion pricing or tolls for operating expenses and continues to make service cuts. We will have approved a monster and not have reversed the trend of making cuts and raising fares every two years.
Sometimes new taxes and fees aren’t enough to cover deficits and cuts still have to be made. But, you can rest assured that if the new taxes and fees weren’t there the cuts would have been even more severe.
Yes the MTA got the new payroll tax last year and raised fares. But that was before the state cut funding and the union raise issue happened. These weren’t predicted when the claim “payroll tax and fee on licenses will prevent service cuts” claim was made.
You still end up paying more for more, not less. Unless you are claiming this money gets “lost” somewhere or someone is playing golf off it, which would be an entirely different accusation.
Wonder if the state legislature knew they were going to cut the subsidy when they approved the payroll tax to help the MTA? Sounds like what they did with the lottery: promised the money would go to education, then cut the subsidy by an equivalent amount.
So how do we know that if congestion pricing or tolls are approved, the State legislature won’t refuse to fund transit at all?
I’m afraid we’ve gotta fix the state legislature to deal with THAT problem. Step one is getting the deadwood out of the State Senate, and that means Espada’s gang of four, every single Republican (all lackeys of convicted felon Joe Bruno), and probably more.
The MTA didn’t misappropriate the funds. The exact funding breakdown is defined by state law. The MTA doesn’t have any say over how much goes to which agency.
Good luck getting that law changed.
So the state law doesn’t provide that they allocate the funding according to ridership which would make sense? Does it say they have to divide the toll money equally between subway and rail which is what I believe they do. And how do buses fit in?
The first $24 million goes to NYCT. The remainder is split in half – half goes to NYCT and half goes to the two commuter railroads. No, it doesn’t make sense at all (although it seemed to make sense in 1968), but the suburbs love it.
I doubt a specific bus-subway breakdown is mandated by law. I’m not sure how the commuter rail share is broken down between LIRR and Metro-North. (Half and half?)
Just one thing-if the bridges were tolled, that would give riders more of an incentive to use mass transit, most likely the subway since the LIRR only passes under the East River near Midtown. The idea is that people can actually see the money coming out of their pocket. It isn’t just the cost of gas and parking-now the drivers can actually see the $5 toll coming out of their pocket, instead of seeing a more invisible cost of gas.
On the other hand, the subway’s still cheap by some measures….
A dime during the Depression could get you an OK dinner at a diner, or two subway rides. Can you get dinner for $4.50? Maybe.
Most transit systems use distance-based fares, which makes sense: The further you travel, the more service you use, the more you pay. NYC’s unique neighborhood distribution, though, completely upends that idea.
Still, someone has to pay for this service. Since I’m not too informed about the specifics of the budget, could someone please post a brief layout and why the MTA has this huge deficit? Because at this rate, farebox recovery will just keep approaching close to 100%, which is not necessarily a good thing.
could someone please post a brief layout and why the MTA has this huge deficit?
There are basically two reasons. First, the last few capital programs have been funded with debt service, and now interest payments are a major part of the MTA budget.
Second, a large part of the MTA’s funding comes from real estate taxes. When the economy is down, those taxes provide less revenue, but the cost of running the transit system remains the same. The MTA needs a steady revenue stream, not one that goes up and down depending on the housing market.
And if may add:
Despite being given ample warning at the time, Gov Pataki is responsible for the first because he reduced the state’s capital funding and told transit to go find the money themselves (which of course they did).
As for the second, of course our lovely state senators and assemblypeople (Hello Shelly!) are responsible for so devotingly and tirelessly working to ensure that transit never, ever has a dedicated and consistent funding stream.
The meeting is tomorrow.Not today.
An unlimited metrocard should cost the same as a monthly LIRR pass from Nassau to Penn station. The MTA made just about all of Nassau one zone a few years ago so you pay the same price if you live near queens as you do if you live near suffolk. The price is well above $200 a month.
Why? A bare minimum of New Yorkers get $200 worth of use out of their unlimited cards. In fact, only approximately 3 percent of all riders use their 30-day cards at volumes worth more than $90. It’s just not the same thing as a monthly commuter rail pass.
As various intellectuals like Sarah Palin say, people in the inner city aren’t real Americans.
The vast majority of subway trips are shorter than the shortest possible Nassau-to-Penn trip.
I may be missing something here. I understand why they might want to eliminate the one-day card if it’s being abused by scammers, but what’s the point of eliminating the 14-day card? By which I mean, how does having one fewer type of card save the MTA any money? The physical cards are the same, the vending machines are the same, the machines are already programmed to sell the cards at that increment, so I don’t see how there’s any cost savings to them at all. It’s a shame that nobody is using them, but isn’t that more an issue of setting the right price point (i.e., make them less expensive than two 7-day passes, but less cost-effective than a 30-day pass) rather than a problem with the concept?
I don’t see them claim anywhere that it’s a money-saving move to axe the 14-day card.
OK, then what’s the point of getting rid of it?
Saves paperwork and programming?
I like the idea of putting the Swiper Scammers out of business. Now they’ll have to take their squeegees out of storage and pound the pavement on West St., Houston St, etc. once again!
The MTA should offer a 5 day unlimited aimed towards people who use the subway to travel to and from work.
Why should the MTA offer a discount to people who only ride when it’s most expensive to accommodate them?
[…] « In fare hike plan, more unlimited cards get the axe Jul […]
Good article Ben.
<blockquote cite="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."
That’s the major problem I have with the MTA. You can’t believe them because often their logic is inconsistent and contradictory. They use statistics to prove the point they want to prove and ignore the ones that don’t support their claim.
If you suggest to them a lengthening of a bus route they respond that service reliability will decline and the idea is rejected solely on that basis. However if they suggest to double the length of a bus route, decreased reliability is never a factor and the change is made.
I still don’t see why variable pricing hasn’t been implemented, or even suggested. $2.50 during rush hours and $2 or $2.25 during off-peak times. It’s not exactly a fare hike, but will get more money out of riders at peak times.
Perhaps another, more radical, idea that will never happen could solve the problem. MTR in Hong Kong is profitable because it owns/is the landlord of the buildings on top of its stations. If the city were to pass a law that all buildings adjacent a station entrance or something similar were required to give the MTA 20% of their rental revenue, the gap would close dramatically. I believe the normal rate per square foot in Midtown is $30; a building the size of the Hearst Tower at that rate would be giving the MTA $5.166m per year. And there’s more where that came from.
The city would never pass such a law because Bloomberg doesn’t want to hurt his buddies. He always sticks up for the rich. He even stuck up for BP.
Didn’t the MTA just propose eliminating off-peak discounts for the LIRR? So why would they do it for the subways although it would seem to make sense.
Wasn’t variable pricing raised (and later dropped) as an option for an earlier fare hike?
Man, as a student on a budget I will be so so sad if they eliminate the Fun Pass. I can no longer afford the monthly (and it makes little sense with my riding patterns) but every now and then I combine all my errands into one day and buy a Fun Pass. I see those scammers all the time so I understand the rationale, but it’s still disappointing for me personally. I think there’s a certain psychological shift that takes place when another ride is included at no extra cost, as opposed to the “don’t ride, save money” mentality that the Pay Per Ride crowd is forced to have. It’s nice to feel unlimited once in a while.
Being a full time college student and a part time worker this hike fare is just not fair. I don’t see where the money is going to still get crappy service. I don’t seem to understand why would the 14 day metro cards be eliminated, due to my bi weekly pay checks it was more convince, but not everybody can afford the expense of the new 30 day metro card, this raise shouldn’t had been taken I personal feel that it should of happen the same time the minimum wage was raised, don’t New Yorks have other living expenses to worry about. . .