Fare Hikes

What do we get out of this? What do we — the 2.3 billion of us who ride the subways — get out of this upcoming fare hike?

That’s the question, isn’t it? Somehow, it’s a lot easier to swallow a fare hike when the increased cost to ride returns some tangible benefits. In December, right before the holidays, the MTA announced a $46-million plan to upgrade service provided that the agency’s finances held steady. In other words, if the tax revenue came in as projected and the fare hike met financial expectations, riders would see some much-needed service upgrades.

Well, good news. With less than a month to go before the new fares go into effect, the MTA is believed to have the funds to ensure their plan. Pete Donohue and the Daily News had more:

It looks like the MTA will be able to afford a $46 million program to upgrade subway and bus service across the city, including more frequent trains on some lines and new bus routes for growing neighborhoods.

The program was adopted last year when the Metropolitan Transportation Authority approved fare hikes, but officials were unsure if there would be enough money to carry it out. So far, the MTA’s tax revenues are sufficient for transit officials to approve the Service Enhancement Program in a month or so, according to experts and sources.

According to Donohue, since approving the fare hike, the MTA has drawn in an additional $23 million in tax revenues, and their 2008 taxes are right on target.

Putting aside the fact that the MTA has again seemingly discovered more money in their coffers after approving a fare hike, what can the riders expect? Well, riders on the 1, 4 and 6 lines should see decreased wait times during the evening. The B and W trains will run until 11 p.m. instead of 9:30 p.m., and the G train will head to Church Ave. in Brooklyn. The R will run to Queens at all times, and the 3 will become a 24-hour train as well. Increased bus service will shuttle New Yorkers from Red Hook to Manhattan via the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel.

There’s no word yet on when these changes will take place, but it’s good news with the fare hikes looming just three weeks away.

The old Transit Authority logo courtesy of flickr user AllWaysNY.

Stock up on those $76 MetroCards while you still can.

The MTA Board has voted to approve the proposed fare hike. Beginning March 2, 2008, fares for New York City buses and subways will increase. CityRoom has the story:

The majority of riders — who use unlimited-ride MetroCards or get a discount for buying multiple rides at once — will have to pay more, starting on March 2. The costs of unlimited-ride cards will rise to $81 from $76 for the 30-day card and to $25 from $24 for the 7-day card; a new 14-day card will be sold for $47.

The bonus for regular pay-per-ride cards will be reduced to 15 percent from 20 percent, but the threshold for receiving the bonus will also be reduced, to $7 from $10. With the bonuses in place, the average cost of a bonus ride will rise to $1.74 from $1.67. The express bus fare ($5) and the cost of a 7-day express bus pass ($41) remain unchanged.

As anyone who follows New York politics knows, the fare hike debate has been raging for much of the last two months. The MTA wanted a higher increase and a base-fare hike as well, but Gov. Spitzer, ever mindful of those tourists in New York, decided he would rather screw over the regular commuters with a token gesture that keeps the base fare at $2 and didn’t really help his sagging approval ratings anyway.

While the MTA has long pushed this fare hike an important step on the road to fiscal responsibility, opponents of the hike have urged the agency to wait a few months for Albany to kick back some money. “I think there’s no harm in waiting until July 1, to keep the pressure on Albany and to ensure they come through for the M.T.A.,” MTA Board Member and fare hike dissenter Andrew Saul said. “By taking the pressure off Albany at this point, it’s a bad mistake for us.”

But other members on the MTA Board recognized the Authority’s tenuous financial situation. Barry Feinstein, an appointee of the governor, noted that the MTA faces a “dog fight” for state funding, and Susan Metzger appreciated the efforts by the MTA to ween itself off of tax windfalls. “This is a very hard decision for all of us too make, and it’s an unpopular one but it’s a first step toward fiscal responsibility,” she said. The MTA, she noted, can no longer turn “a blind eye to our responsiblity to put the MTA on a firm future monetary structure.”

Hikes will go into effect on March 1 for MetroNorth and LIRR riders and March 16 for Bridge and Tunnel users.

Abandon hope, all ye who hate fare hikes. Today, the MTA board’s finance committee voted to approve the fare hike plans. While the full MTA board still has to decide on the hike tomorrow, that vote is all but a formality at this point.

“There is little question that this will be approved, if not unanimously, then virtually unanimously,” MTA Board member Barry Feinstein said to NY1’s transportation guru Bobby Cuza. So start stocking up on Unlimited Ride 30-Day MetroCards. The new fares will most likely go into effect on March 2.

But all is not last in the war for a better subway system. Along with the new fares — and a financial caveat — will come increased bus and subway service during the second half of 2008. William Neuman reports:

Riders would see the first service improvements in June, according to material released on Monday. Some of the changes are relatively small, like shaving one or two minutes from waiting times for evening service on the Nos. 1, 4 and 6 lines. Others add hours of operation to some lines. Operation of the B and W lines on weekdays would be extended to 11 p.m. from 9:30 p.m. Some changes, like an increase in service on the G train, would not begin until next December.

The changes would also create a new bus line, the M13, from the Lower East Side to East Midtown, and would extend the B71 and B77 buses from Brooklyn via the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel into Manhattan, where they would go to South Ferry.

Cuza also notes that the 3 will always run to 148th St., that the R will go to Forest Hills-71st Ave. at all times, and that the 7 will see more weekend service.

According to the MTA, these much-needed service additions will cost at least $16 million in 2008 and $46 million the year after. No matter the price tage, riders along those lines targeted for service should rejoice, and those relying on the B (like me!) should be particularly thrilled by that news.

Of course, there’s one giant IF though. The MTA will implement this increased service plan only if their finances hold through the first three months of 2008. If the debt-laden agency’s economic situation worsens between now and March, riders will be saddled with a higher fare and none of the promised service upgrades. “If those are not now going to go through, you know, I feel a little bit betrayed about the whole thing, and so should the customers,” NYCT Riders Council representative and MTA board Andrew Albert said.

For all the negativity surrounding the fare hike, these service upgrades should soften the blow of the fare hikes. Unsurprisingly, the MTA hasn’t done a great job pushing these service upgrades as a trade-off for the fare hikes. Had they done so, I believe the public would have been more accepting of the hikes.

Photo of the old tokens and a Metrocard by flickr user MacRonin47.

For weeks, the MTA had promoted their planned Webinar. Join us on Monday, December 10, they said, for an interactive presentation about the fare hike proposals. MTA officials would discuss the new fare hike structure and field questions for thousands of riders sitting at their computers.

But of course, disaster struck, and no one — literally no one that I know — was able to access the Webinar. For their part, the MTA blamed their third-party software provider both in an e-mail to those of us who had registered and in a statement released to the media. MTA CEO and Executive Director Lee Sander spoke for the agency in an e-mail:

Unfortunately, we experienced some technological difficulties which created difficulty for some participants to view the slide presentations being given. For that we sincerely apologize. Even though the technology didn’t work perfectly for us this first time, the webinar format and the extremely successful Public Engagement Workshop we held on November 17th, were noble experiments to expand our public outreach efforts. We learned a lot today and look forward to better employing the electronic element in the future.

Now, I take some exception to Sander’s statement. I along with Chris from East Village Idiot and the good folks at Gothamist tried to access this webinar with no success. But despite this 100 percent lack of participation from the group of people I know, MTA Spokesman Jeremy Soffin said, “There were obviously technical difficulties, although we received hundreds of questions and know that the audio worked as well.”

If someone who heard and saw this presentation with no problems could come forward, I’d love to hear from you. Was it any good? Did they adequately address the issues and concerns raised in this PDF presentation? I’ve seen that slideshow before so it’s not a surprise to me, but was it to you?

Meanwhile, the bigger news of the day — and here I am, burying the lede — is that the failure of the fare hike Webinar and the whole sense of debate no longer matters. New York’s big guns have spoken, and it would be a huge surprise if the MTA’s board failed to pass the fare hike next week.

Exhibit A comes to us from Mayor Michael Bloomberg. For weeks, Bloomberg — and by extension, the four MTA board votes he controls — had been silent. Today, with word of the hike getting out, Bloomberg, speaking to us from China, lifted that veil. Elizabeth Benjamin has the mayor’s statement:

Based on the information that my staff and I have received and reviewed over the past few weeks, I am now satisfied that the MTA budget is a responsible plan that includes important cost reductions. I agree with Governor Spitzer that this fare increase is necessary to maintain an adequate level of service and balance the needs and obligations of all who use this critical part of the region’s infrastructure. Although it is always hard to ask riders to pay more, I will now urge the City’s representatives to support the proposed fare plan that calls for preserving the $2.00 fare and holding the overall fare increase to less than 4%. This was something we couldn’t support until we’d done everything possible to lower operating expenses and to ensure efficiencies.

And Gov. Spitzer, the embattled governor who is screwing us and getting screwed, sounded a similar bell today:

I commend MTA Chair Dale Hemmerdinger and MTA Executive Director and CEO Lee Sander on the hard work that they and their staff have put into developing a fiscally responsible 2008 budget…I urge the MTA Board to adopt the proposed budget at their meeting next week.

We must now turn our efforts to the long-term funding of the state’s transportation infrastructure, including the needs of the MTA. We need to invest, not only to maintain the system we have, but to make the necessary improvements to grow the system through the 2nd Avenue Subway, East Side Access, Access to Regions Core, and a new Moynihan Station – projects that will ensure the system serves the 21st Century economy.

On the other side of the debate, a few members of the citycouncil and Christine Quinn looking to position herself for a run at the mayorship spoke out against the fare hike. The best statement came from Simcha Felder who slammed Spitzer’s tourist-friendly plan:

I’m not surprised that the MTA has found a new way to rip us off by holding the base fare favored by tourists at $2, while raising every other fare, including the fares of the weekly and monthly unlimited passes. Hard working New Yorkers, who have to deal with crowded trains, delayed and intermittent service, and dirty subway stations every day should be the ones shielded most from fare hikes.

But it doesn’t matter. The big guns have spoken. The fare hike will pass, and the MTA’s efforts at soliciting public opinion came to an inglorious end today.

As I’ve mentioned in the past, I am in support of this fare hike. Until the MTA has money in hand from the state government, they have to proceed down a fiscally responsible path. The Richard Brodsky’s and John Liu’s of the world can criticize them all they want and offer up empty promises of hundreds of millions of dollars, but that’s not good enough. The MTA controls its own fate right now, and until someone shows me otherwise, it’s the way to go.

One day, we’ll all know what to do with that odd amount of change left on our pay-per-ride MetroCards, and we’ll all learn to re-educate ourselves in the ways of MetroCard mathematics. But for now, the fare hike is a fait accompli. And that’s life in the Big Apple for ya.

This afternoon, at 12 noon, the MTA will officially unveil its new fare plan during an online seminar. But, thanks to William Neuman and The New York Times, we already know what the new fare structure proposal will be, and as we guessed, everyday riders will bear the brunt of the increase. Thank you, Governor Spitzer.

Before getting to the proposal, let’s review: The MTA came under fire for its new fare hike plan seemingly from Day 1 in September. Comptrollers criticized the plans; MTA Board Members criticized the plan; the Straphangers criticized the plan. Then, in an effort to bolster his flagging image, New York’s Gov. Eliot Spitzer strongly urged the MTA to keep the base fare at $2 and scale the back the hikes. The MTA obliged, and now we’re all worse off. Well, all of us except the whopping 14 percent of subway riders who pay just $2 a ride.

So now, enter the new new fare hike proposal. Take it away, William Neuman:

Subway and bus riders who use monthly unlimited-ride MetroCards would be hit the hardest under a revised proposal to increase transit fares, which is to be announced today by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

The cost of the monthly pass would rise to $81 from $76, a 6.6 percent increase, according to a memo sent to the authority’s board members yesterday. Bonus pay-per-ride MetroCards would also face increases under the new proposal. Also, an earlier proposal to offer discounts during off-peak hours is no longer being recommended, according to the memo…

Under the new proposal, the weekly unlimited-ride MetroCard would increase to $25, from $24, a 4.2 percent increase. Also, a 14-day MetroCard would be created, with a cost of $47. As part of the changes, the bonus on pay-per-ride MetroCards would fall to 15 percent, from 20 percent. But the amount of money needed to qualify for the bonus will also drop, to $7, from $10, the memo said.

You know what this means, right? Get ready to flex your math brains. For those pay-per-ride folks, buy a $20 MetroCard, get $3 more dollars. Those $23 cards really won’t come in handy at the end of its life. And forget about adding $7 more dollars; you’ll just end up with $8.05 instead, an utterly useless amount when it comes to the subway.

Meanwhile, it’s that Unlimited Ride increase that worries me. Sure, as the Monthly MetroCard Challenge shows, we’re all getting some pretty good deals with those cards, and I do like the addition of a 14-day Unlimited card. But while Spitzer made a good show of supposedly stopping the fare hike, the large faction of us using Unlimited Ride cards will now be shouldering more of the burden than we would have if the fare had risen to $2.25.

In the original plan, the Unlimited Ride cards were up for two different increases. The Peak/Off-Peak plan that was pretty much dead on arrival had the Unlimited cards heading to $81 for a month while the more traditional increase had those cards at $79. Now, the base fare — the fare used by one-off riders who don’t really enjoy all the benefits of the subway — will stay at $2, and Unlimited Ride MetroCards will go up by a whopping 6.6 percent, an increase even greater than that of the one planned for the bridge and tunnel crossings run by the MTA.

Once again, cars and tourists get the benefit of a reduced fare plan while residents relying on mass transit on a daily basis draw the short straw. Thanks for looking out for us, Gov. Spitzer. Appreciate it.

Personally, I’ve long expressed my support for a fare hike. Until Richard Brodsky makes good on his promise, reiterated once again in Neuman’s article, of more federal funds for the MTA, the agency has to shore up its financial future. But I can’t really get behind a plan that really nails the MTA’s most loyal customers while giving cars a sweet deal. We should be doing what we can to encourage mass transit use right now, and I’d rather see no fare hike than this shortsighted plan put forth by a pandering governor.