As the MTA’s public hearings for the looming fare hike move ever closer, the public comments surrounding the price increases start to sound the same. “How can they do this?” “More money for worse service.” “I’m going to stop taking the train and start driving.” We hear this litany of complaints with increasing frequency, and yet, when the MTA raises the fares, ridership numbers do not decrease. In fact, they’ve gone up over the past decade. Why?

To many, the answer is obvious: Even with subway fare increases, transit remains the cheapest way to get around the city by far, and it’s reasonably efficient too. So far all the bluster, straphangers aren’t about to start shelling out thousands for parking just because the cost of a Metrocard goes up. So the MTA can continue to raise prices forever, especially as other costs increase.

Today at Capital New York, Dana Rubinstein explored this phenomenon of pricing:

Logic tells us that at some point such hikes become unsustainable; excessively high prices deter customers and end up hurting the bottom line, as everyone knows. Except not when it comes to transit. “The answer is, that never happens,” said Jeffrey Zupan, a senior fellow at the Regional Plan Association, in response to a question about the point of diminishing returns for fare hikes. “Obviously if you charged $100 a ride for using the subway, no one would use it and you’d have no revenue. There’d be millionaires on it … if they wanted to use the subway.”

“It’s sort of like talking about the far reaches of the solar system,” said Charles Komanoff, a transport economist. “We are not remotely close to that. You could just as easily say, ‘If people had to swim to get down the staircases to the stations, then they’re not going to ride the trains.’ OK, that’s true, but so what?”

These are people, mind you, who are vigorous advocates of publicly subsidized transit. But with one exception (Robert Paaswell, director of the CUNY Institute for Urban Systems, who said that “if you even mentioned $4, people would panic”) none of the transportation experts I spoke to believed fares could ever realistically get high enough to repel riders in big enough numbers to cost the M.T.A. money. That’s actually the problem, politically: other than the complaints of straphanger advocates, there’s nothing to discourage the M.T.A. (or the governor, who controls the authority) from making up revenue shortfalls with fare hikes. In terms of what the market will bear, the price of a ride can always go up.

Rubinstein gets into some of the economic theory behind elastic and inelastic pricing schemes, but it would take a massive shock to the system to get people to change transportation modes. The real question though concerns the subway system as a public good. It’s not an issue for those who begrudgingly accept fare hikes because they can ultimate afford the additional $96 a year. Rather, it’s for those who can’t, and there’s where government support of transit comes into play.

If the role of a subway system is to move people throughout a wide space efficiently and cheaply (thus encouraging economic growth and easy access to job centers), how much money should governments contribute in order to keep the fares artificially low? That seems to be the underlying issue plaguing Albany, transit advocates and the MTA right now.

In announcing plans for a looming fare hike, the MTA unveiled a complicated slate of options that featured a wide array of potential outcomes. Some scenarios saw the monthly card jump to $125; others saw the base fare boosted to $2.50 with an elimination of the pay-per-ride discounts. In a way, though, those were red herrings, and as MTA head Joe Lhota made clear today, the contours of the fare hike may be a preordained conclusion.

In an interview with WOR on Monday morning, Lhota expressed his belief that the base fare would rise to $2.50, that the pay-per-ride bonuses would remain at a reduced rate and that unlimited card riders would largely avoid the same steep increases they saw a few years ago. “The base fare will probably go up,” Lhota said, “because if it doesn’t go up, it will have a huge impact on the people who take the monthly pass and use discounted fares. I think we should focus on the middle class. We need to focus on those folks and minimize the increase. The majority of people either take a seven-day pass, a 30-day pass or use the discount pass, and I think we need to focus on how to keep the cost as low as possible for them.”

As The Times subsequently noted, such an increase may spare the middle class but would hit the city’s poorest subway riders harder. Nearly 40 percent of riders earning under $25,000 a year use pay-per-ride cards while only 20 percent of those earning more than $50,000 do. It’s hard to assess the impact though because the count of people using pay-per-ride cards and earning under $25,000 hasn’t been released publicly.

While the ultimate decision is up to the MTA Board and Lhota is but one voice, his is a powerful one. Still, there’s time to shape the debate, and that’s what Crain’s New York is trying to accomplish through its editorial this week:

The question at hand is whether single-ride, multiride or unlimited-ride MetroCards should be favored in the new pricing scheme. Although public hearings have yet to begin, popular sentiment seems to be with multiride cards. Even MTA Chairman Joseph Lhota, who at a recent Crain’s forum had frowned on the 7% discount on these cards, is now suggesting that it only be trimmed, not eliminated.

The thinking is that multiride cards are the most commonly purchased and thus should keep their discount to benefit the greatest number of straphangers. But perhaps they are popular because of the discount. It’s illogical to discount a product because it is popular. The purpose of a fare discount should be to induce transit riders to make decisions that are best for the system and the city.

That’s why unlimited monthly and weekly MetroCards should get the biggest break. They empower and encourage people not only to commute but to shop, to socialize, to consume entertainment—in general, to make the most of our vast and diverse city without adding automobile traffic. Unlimited cards are good for the city’s economy, environment and quality of life. They increase ridership, and expanding mass transit’s constituency will translate into more political support for the MTA.

I couldn’t have said it better myself. But this is just one piece of the puzzle. The 800-pound gorilla in the room concerns state support for transit. As has been noted repeatedly by advocates and the MTA, riders are being asked to foot the bill for more and more of the MTA’s budget while state and city contributions do not increase in turn. If mass transit is a public good, that equation should change. To that end, Stefanie Gray of Transportation Alternatives is going to try to set the record for riding to every subway stop on Tuesday in an effort to raise awareness for the issues of funding. She has Joe Lhota’s blessing, some detailed maps of the system, and a Twitter account worth following. If Gray’s ambitious stunt can bring attention to the matter of funding, perhaps we’ll be better off in a few weeks. At least we can dream.