By the time the subways return to service at 6 a.m. today, New York City will have suffered through approximately 42 hours without our trains. The MTA announced a system-wide shutdown for noon on Saturday, and by 2:30 p.m. on Saturday afternoon, stations were roped off. The great Irene-inspired isolation had begun.
As with all things MTA, the system shutdown was not without controversy, and over the next few days, as our commutes slowly return to something resembling normalcy, we’ll hear a lot about the appropriateness of the response in light of the forecast. No one will ever be happy with the state’s and MTA’s reactions, but after December’s blizzard left trains stranded in snow drifts, the authority, by and large, made the right call this weekend.
Still, one thing gave me pause. Amidst the hoopla over the planned shutdown on Saturday morning, The New York Times found out that the MTA was not going to extend unlimited ride MetroCards. In a vacuum, this isn’t the biggest of deals. After all, the system was out for 42 hours during a period of generally less usage. August tends to see lower ridership than most months as people vacate New York, and the weekends aren’t popular for subway travel either.
On the other hand, though, the unlimited MetroCard calculus is not one to take lightly. When many — but not all — straphangers purchase their 7- or 30-day cards, they know how many rides they plan to take during the week and guess to the number of trips they need during the weekend to break even of come out ahead. Without travel for a day and a half or two days, the savings start to slip away. With knowledge of time away from the subway — a weekend out of town or lighter travel plans — many opt to eschew the unlimited ride card until the timing makes sense. The state’s decision to freeze the city cost unlimited ride users some dollars.
Of course, I’m nitpicking a bit. After all, the MTA provided free bus rides on Sunday when limited bus service was restored and offered free rides throughout the system on Friday and Saturday as evacuation plans went into effect. Furthermore, even though New Yorkers tend to spit in the face of natural disasters and extreme weather, no one was really going far on Saturday night as winds and rain descended upon New York. While the MTA shutdown brought the city to a halt, so to did dire warnings urging city residents to stay inside.
Yet, I can’t help but think that those of us with unlimited ride cards should get a bonus. We should get that extra day and a half back. We paid for it, and we couldn’t enjoy the benefits of subway service because, well, there wasn’t any. We’re all safe; the system is gearing up to launch in five hours from now; and all we need is our lost time back. After all, that’s the New York way.
19 comments
I did in fact buy a 7 day unlimited with a friend of mine who came into the city. I figured I would show him the city with it. It would be great if I can get an additional two days out of the unlimited, even though the bus rides were free, there weren’t any places to go anyway. It would be great if the MTA gave us an additional 2 days, but they really are being just a bit greedy here not giving us what we paid for. Given the financial crisis of the MTA, they’ll find any excuse like this to take some pocket change out of us.
Luckily, I’ve ridden enough to make up for the cost of the $28 before the weekend, so it wasn’t a total loss.
If you think about it, they should give the users the extra day that the buses were free as well, considering the fact that they paid for something that would’ve been free anyway.
Does the MTA even have the technical capability to do such an en masse credit to the unlimited metrocards if they wanted to? It sounds simple enough, but perhaps there’s also a system limitation (on top of just not thinking we deserve the refund).
Seems like the MTA is doing the right thing here. The vast, vast majority of 7- and 30-day holders getting a reimbursement here would be double-dipping off the storm, having had no intention of using the system anyway. Those who would have travelled but for the shut-down probably travelled anyway, and if they did so for work, their jobs probably picked up that tab. The number of people who have a strong claim over their $7 or so is small.
That said, if the MTA had a manual reimbursement process here — send in your card, fill out some form, etc. — I’d not be against it.
Seems like the MTA is doing the right thing here. The vast, vast majority of 7- and 30-day holders getting a reimbursement here would be double-dipping off the storm, having had no intention of using the system anyway. Those who would have travelled but for the shut-down probably travelled anyway, and if they did so for work, their jobs probably picked up that tab. The number of people who have a strong claim over their $7 or so is small.
That said, if the MTA had a manual reimbursement process here — send in your card, fill out some form, etc. — I’d not be against it.
Well, unlimited cards can’t (yet) be refilled, can they? Or perhaps it’s possible but the machines don’t have the capability. Perhaps it’s something that token clerks could do. At any rate, it’s probably a lot of work for little benefit.
I disagree with Dan, I and many many other 30 day users absolutely would have used the subway on saturday and sunday. Matter of fact i spent roughly $100 in car services due to not having the subway or busses available while running errands on saturday and getting food to eat on sunday.
I would chalk that up to poor planning.
Sorry, but this has to be said. Watch the news and surf the web. If the worst impact of Irene was that you lost a day of potential Metrocard usage, consider yourself very fortunate.
Best comment of the thread.
I expect much less from public entities (in this case, a public benefit corporation) than I do from private entities, and I do not expect or think the MTA needs to refund the money. In fact, claiming back the money in a storm where the MTA had to shut down trains, block off stations, block off yards, and finally restart the trains (along with the bus system, SIR, all the work around construction sites, etc.) is somewhat greedy. This wasn’t a union strike; this was a hurricane threat. There is considerable damage to more than just train infrastructure; and NYC riders should consider themselves lucky that they aren’t Metro-North riders or affected Long Island Rail Road passengers who cannot ride their system at all. Now is not the time to grumble over maybe two days of lost rides.
Exactly. The MTA were still spending money to secure the system, in order to keep it usable for us.
They were in fact working on our behalf, even if we couldn’t access the trains and buses. And it wasn’t safe to be out and about anyway.
In a perfect world we’d get our money back. But that would just leave the MTA that much deeper in the hole. I’m not going to complain about this.
I’m with JD12. This is a real white whine, Ben.
“Acts of nature” come under the exceptions list for refunds; count yourselves lucky, not swindled, and entitled.
“No one will ever be happy with the state’s and MTA’s reactions” – this seems a bit pessimistic. Surely someone will, sometime. I’ll volunteer to be happy if no one else will.
I’m with Julian. MTA is a public entity which just incurred a lot of extra costs, and those have to be borne by the public.
But why should they be borne specifically by people with unlimited cards?
Unlimiteds should be extended by two days. There was no service operating much of the day on Saturday and most of the day on Sunday. Charging for service when no service is available is theft.
If, as a result, the next fare increase comes a week early, so be it. You don’t get to steal from your customers because you’re facing financial troubles.
I recall that unlimited MetroCards were extended for 3 days after the transit strike.
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/.....ver_wh.php
Since I never budget well enough to know how much value I get out of the card. (I mostly do it for the pretax benefit), I think this is mostly an academic complaint. I think the vast majority of people who have use the unlimited cards think: “I’ll either just break even or save a little bit but the convenience is a factor.”
Still today my unlimited card ran … I guess I started the last one too early. But that was a small amount of annoyance. I figure the cost of those days I “lost” will pay for whatever costs the system incurred to be prepared.
Think how much the MTA is struggling with people trying to take funding away from its operations and construction budget. Think how much they lost trying to protect the system during the storm and also from lost revenues..
Any refunds on the part of the MTA would be no doubt withdrawn from other projects and expenditures.. Then the MTA would have to request it from a stupidly hostile political system.
It is not too much to ask to lose a few dollars per person to help the recovery effort. A fairly small shared sacrifice. I imagine most of the people reading this site, would happily pay this amount to ensure that the second avenue subway progresses, or the 7 train or the east side access, or better train maintenance.
One cound have mailed it back or reported it lost (if you used your credit card) and the MTA would have given you a prorated refund based on the last day it was used. Then just buy a new one on the Monday morning after the storm.
Bur why???