MTA Fare Hike Not Fair
Since moving my family out of Manhattan to the suburbs last year, I switched from being a subway rider to a Metro North customer. But I still felt a pang of disappointment Tuesday when I heard the MTA is going to propose yet another fare hike for subways and buses. The pang then went ping on the news that subway delays had increased by 24 percent over the past year ending in May. I don’t know who’s responsible for the MTA’s public information strategy, but I would suggest some lag time between poor performance reports and fare hike proposals. It leads one to the conclusion that people are being asked to pay more money for worse service.
Which, of course, is exactly what riders ARE being asked to do, and who can blame a single one of them for being angry about it. First of all, it’s 25-cents more. Sure, that’s not an enormous amount of money, but after a while, these “modest” hikes start nicking straphangers to death. A quarter more this year, a quarter more next year; before long, to paraphrase Senator Everett Dirksen, you’re starting to talk real money. In fact, as recently as 1986, it cost exactly $1 to ride the bus or subway. So in just over 20-years, according to my math, that’s a 100-percent increase. Take it up another quarter next year, and you’ve got an increase of….well, of OVER 100-percent in just over two decades.
And what have we gotten for it? As noted above, more trains run behind schedule than ever before. A heavy rainfall can lock up the entire system. Some stations have been improved, but most of them are, to put it kindly, decrepit. My “home” station when I lived in Manhattan, at 96th Street and Central Park West, was simply disgusting. Filthy, leaky, searing hot in the summertime, and freezing in the winter. And that was Central Park West! I’m guessing stations in more moderate income communities have it much worse.
As New Yorkers, we’re fond of saying we live in the greatest city in the world. But our subway system, while the biggest in the world, is far from the greatest. Pick any city with a subway system of any size, and it’s nicer than New York’s. Paris, London, Moscow… MOSCOW, for God’s sake! The city fathers who are always so concerned about New York’s image in the eyes of the world should spend a little more time underground. If nothing more than making it a matter of pride, it should be a top priority to overhaul everything and rebuild a world class public transportation system.
I know, I know.. it’ll cost billions and billions.. tax dollars are down, etc, etc. We’ve heard it for years. Funny, though, how the city can find the money to build not one but two new mega-baseball stadiums, with a complete overhaul of Madison Square Garden on the drawing board, as well. Sports are enormously important to New York and to the city’s reputation. But last time I looked, a lot more people were riding subways and buses each day than heading out to catch that night’s Yankees game.
Finally, a fare hike in this era of $4.50 per gallon gasoline is especially hard to swallow. What have we always heard we should do to wean us off America’s oil addiction? All together now: USE PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION! Well, in enormous numbers, New Yorkers do just that. And look at the thanks we’re getting. Dig deeper, straphangers and bus riders. You’ll soon be paying more to use a public transportation system that seems to have no long term plan besides….more fare hikes. If this really is the greatest city in the world, we deserve better.
Comments: 6
Good points. But Jim, why don't you probe the finances of the MTA system, administration and board on your news program? How much do the people running the MTA earn? What does their budget look like and where could it be cut? Why don't you dedicate a news segment or segments to report on that? It's important to point out how the proposed increase would economically harm riders, but it would be helpful to know how the MTA is spending its money and the possible ways they could trim their budget and become more efficient, especially given their broken promise after the last fair increase.
BTW, it's Everett Dirksen, not "Dirkson."
Yea, the MTA subway system is far from perfect. Many stations still require renovation and trains need replacements. 59th and Lexington is horrible. Thousands of people use this station every single and it's unbearable. Hot, difficulty breathing, leaking, and the stairwell is like you're walking down to hell (with the conditions, you're pretty close). I have yet to see a decent looking station outside of the above ground stations.
Train replacements are also in need. The old style trains such as the B, D, F, V, R, W, Q, etc are totally outdated and difficult for people that are new to the city or to the trains. Announcements are never coherent and the maps on board are quite difficult to understand, especially to a tourist.
I'm a student that travels from the Bronx to Manhattan every day. My main trains are the 2, 5 and 6. It's rare for there to be a day where it's not over crowded, the trains are on time, diversions are at a minimum, hearing "signal problems" are at a minimum, or the ever famous "there is train traffic ahead of us, please be patient". It's hard to do that when you are rushing to work or school after spending 80 bucks for a MetroCard.
Service sucks, but let's just hope that it gets better after these fare hikes. However, without it, we'd all have to conform to driving. Everyone driving in New York City is impossible and with gas prices so high, it would be just down right painful.
In response to Lil Dolly, yea, I agree with you, it's very important to actually know all the actual figures the MTA is earning. I did a research presentation on the MTA fare hike last year when they first proposed it and implemented it. They don't earn a lot of money. I don't have any actual figures, but it's all on the MTA Budgeting portion of mta.info.
The company has a vast amount of employees and numerous money exhausting projects that are in effect. Second Avenue Line, LIRR to Grand Central, South Ferry 1 station rehabilitation, etc. It's quite evident that since this is a government enterprise, the commoners have to take a hit in their pockets in order remedy the situations. However, like most government enterprises, profits are usually negative, but projects such as these should have a higher benefit to compensate the cost.
These projects are long lasting projects and the funding required is only going to increase more and more to the point where we may not even want to use public transportation anymore because it just costs too much. There are other ways for the MTA to earn more money. Perhaps selling desolated areas and parts, employee reduction, asking for more governmental funding, but make sure to take every possible alternative before asking the public to dig deeper. If it has to happen, it has to happen, but make us feel that they put in the effort to ensure the efficiency of our dollar. They haven't done that since the last fare hike.
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