$130 a month for a *transit pass*?! NYC may be headed there.

[KamaAina]

:wow:

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2010/08/24/2010-08-24_an_mta_sideswipe_riders_stunned_as_agency_releases_plan_for_whopping_130_monthly.html


Bus and subway riders could get slugged with knockout fares next year - like $130 for a monthly MetroCard - under a surprise option the MTA unveiled Monday....

Still, subway riders were shocked when shown the fine-print figures in the newspaper advertisements, which don't appear on the MTA website.

"Oh, my God, that's too much for me," Aurora Perez, 20, a supermarket worker from Brooklyn said of the $130 price tag....

Anthony Grainger, 28, a student from Brooklyn, called such increases "heinously high."

And it's not like you can just say "Screw it!" and hop in your car. Not if you're going into Manhattan, anyway.

[mdmc]

1. The WFP is against it

the GOP and the Dems on the other hand..

[KamaAina]

5. For non-Noo Yawkers, that's the Working Families Party

a labor-backed party that often, though not always, cross-endorses Dem candidates (this is allowed in NY, and is a very good idea, because it allows smaller parties like WFP to back a major-party candidate who's allied with their platform rather than having to run a spoiler in every race).

[mdmc]

6. yupyupyup

[Raineyb]

11. I often vote on the Worker's Family Party line. Although I wonder at the

wisdom of aligning themselves with a major party when the major party doesn't do a hell of a lot for the issues that are important to it.

[Jkid]

2. And they'll still cut services anyway.

Paying more for less...

[villager]

3. hey! Just as long as no wealth is diverted from the top 1%, or the bomb-makers!

The little people, on the other hand... well, what are they going to actually do about it...?

[shanti]

4. $100 a month

here in sacramento....

[KamaAina]

7. But at least you can still go places after 9 PM

oh, wait a minute, you can't.

Seriesly. They just shut down everything after 9 o'clock at night. This in a city large enough to be in the NBA.

It's bad enough that I would have to consider whether to take a job up there, which is entirely possible, what with me being a policy analyst and it being the state capital and all.

[Raineyb]

8. That's bullshit!

No one who works for a living can afford to pay that for a monthly pass. I would ask what the fuck is wrong with the MTA but I already know what's wrong with those rapacious motherfuckers.

[uncommon]

20. Really? How are people all over the place paying for their cars, gas, insurance, etc?

The outrage over this is just dumb. It's a perfectly reasonable price tag.

[Raineyb]

24. Do you live here? It is not a fine price tag it's actually more expensive than just buying a

Metrocard which is what most people who work in Manhattan and live elsewhere would use it for. Perhaps you should figure out what the fucking car fare is before you type. Rent is often half one's paycheck and 130 dollars is not a reasonable price at all considering the cuts in service and the difficulty of getting mass transit in some areas of the city.

[Chan790]

28. Also it reprsents a $50 increase over just 18 months ago.

The fare jumped from $80 to $89 a little over a year ago. $130 is goddamned ridiculous, $109 when they proposed it a year ago was ridiculous.

MTA Subway is one of the least subsidized mass-transit systems in the country (and it doesn't need a large subsidy), but MTA also runs MNR, LIRR and the bridge-tolls (all of which are heavily subsidized). Rider fares go up on the mass transit options because lawmakers in Albany refuse to consider raising bridge tolls, as bridge tolls are borne mostly by the wealthy because that's who drives and commutes by car in NYC. It's a straight-out partisan issue. Republicans threatened to walk out of the state legislature last time if bridge toll increases were not taken off the table...I'd wager they're pulling the same shit now.

Albany needs to get fucked. Raise the damned bridge fares and leave the working commuters alone.

[uncommon]

30. I live in an extremely expensive area so kindly consider that before you start cussing

at me like a jerk.

Rent is half my paycheck here and I have to pay for a car and all of the related expenses.

I've spent plenty of time in New York - and have yet to be in such a remote area that a bus or train isn't within a 5-10 minute walk.

[Hannah Bell]

43. no, it's not.

[Fumesucker]

9. By the time you add up payment, insurance, maintenance and fuel..

The average person pays a lot more than that per month for a car.

[Starbucks Anarchist]

10. NYC also has a high cost of living, even in the outer boroughs.

Rent can be 50% of your monthly pay.

[Fumesucker]

12. Rent can be high lots of places..

NYC is expensive but so are a lot of other towns, everything is a trade off.

[Starbucks Anarchist]

26. If those other towns are Chicago, LA, San Francisco, etc., then yes.

Otherwise there's no comparison at all.

[uncommon]

31. That's laughable. I live in a MA suburb and my rent is almost half my monthly take home and I pay

for a car and everything else on top of it. And I commute to work.

Shit is expensive in a lot of places - if I could take public transit here for $130 a month, you bet your ass I would in a heartbeat.

[Starbucks Anarchist]

36. I don't know what you make, so I can't really judge that.

Personally, I make very little, yet the cheapest studio I could find is half my monthly take-home pay, and I don't even live in Manhattan.

[Lucky Luciano]

33. Not even close to being comparable.

Try $3K for a 675 sq ft apt in a new clean building. $2200-$2400 if it is in an older more rundown building.

[LanternWaste]

14. Except for those who carpool...

Except for those who carpool...

[Fumesucker]

16. You still pay the payment and insurance..

Maintenance and operating costs are somewhat lower though, true.

And people could carpool in NYC.

[wickerwoman]

42. And?

Do you seriously think people who take mass transit should pay anything comparable to what private vehicle owners pay?

Most people take mass transit because they can't afford a car. Are those the kinds of people who should get hit with an extra share of the transportation pie while we're all talking out the other side of our mouths about sustainability and ending our dependence on foreign oil?

[Fumesucker]

48. I don't have a car because I can't afford it..

Mass transit isn't an option where I live because there is *zero* mass transit here.

I ride a thirty year old motorcycle as my sole means of transportation, my insurance is $99 a year, I get 50+ mpg and I do all my own maintenance and repairs because the motorcycle dealers won't even work on a bike the age of mine.

I was just pointing out facts, I know from bitter personal experience that those facts are inconvenient and perhaps even unfair but they remain facts.

[taught_me_patience]

13. They should probably raise it to $300/mo

It would still be cheaper than driving a car. What other choice do people have? If New York is going to fuck the little guy, might as well go all the way.


:sarcasm:

[grasswire]

15. time to buy a rickshaw...

...and start a small business. Although I suppose there are laws against that.

[Kat45]

21. Kramer & Newman tried that, setting up a rickshaw business in NYC,

hiring a homeless man to pull the rickshaw. Didn't work out when the homeless guy ran off with it. :rofl:

[Lucky Luciano]

35. There are some rickshaw types near Central Park South

for the tourists. I HATE THEM and want to run their asses over because they totally fuck up the traffic flow. They should only be allowed to operate inside of Central Park for the tourists. I would be ok with that.

[tularetom]

17. Average 22 working days per month, 2 trips per day

That's 44 rides per month for $130 or just about $3 per ride. $6 per day.

When you consider that it must cost at least $20 a day to park your car in Manhattan, that doesn't sound that terrible to me.

I'm guessing that these fares only cover about a third of the operating costs of the system (typical for subsidized urban mass transit systems) so the true costs per ride is hella high by comparison.

[Raineyb]

22. That is actually MORE than the current fare is now. A monthly pass should be cheaper

than just buying a Metrocard. It is exactly backwards.

[anarch]

25. exactly...what, are they going to raise the cost of one fare to like $4.00 or something?

as an aside, I think that's still less than I pay to commute in dc. And now I'm pretty sure I could find a place in Brooklyn that would cost less to rent than what I pay here, too. I find that to be sort of crazy. Like, maybe I should move to New York to lower my cost of living.

[Chan790]

29. It was reality shock when I moved from Brooklyn to Maryland.

my rent and my transit both exploded. Transit tripled, rent up 150% over Brooklyn.

[uncommon]

32. No, no, no - nowhere in the world is more expensive or equally as expensive as NYC.

:sarcasm:

[Chan790]

39. Actually...

Suburban DC/MD/VA, San Fran, Honolulu and Boston all supposedly have higher costs of living. One of the few advantages NYC has is the cheap transportation system though.

WMATA here in DC is the worst transit system in the nation and the most expensive. The average one-way fare for a suburban mass-transit commuter is $4.15 and the system is fraught with delays, failures and breakdowns. (The DC Red-line has had 1 event-free weekend since January. 1 weekend without a major delay or closure.) Oh, they've also managed to kill more people than the other 9 largest transit systems in the nation combined over the past 4 years.

[KamaAina]

44. Oh, come on

a lot of the Metro body count came from the one huge wreck on the Red Line.

Give 'em a break! :sarcasm:

[Chan790]

47. Actually, they've led all four years individually as well.

Not combined, but still #1.

Because that's not a sign of a problem right there. The most recent one (not including the suicide last month) occurred a few months back when they ran over 2 construction workers in a work zone. A month before that, they sideswiped someone at Landover station with a full-speed train on a pass-through. (I think they survived though.)

The NTSB is threatening a takeover of safety operations and replacing everybody with its' own people. I'm wondering what took so long.

[WolverineDG]

18. still less than gas/maintenance /insurance/parking for a car

if you can't afford $130/month for a pass, you can't afford a car either.

dg

[uncommon]

19. That's cheaper than car insurance, gas, repairs, and possibly a car payment - a hell of a lot

cheaper.

I don't see the problem. Transit systems cost money to run.

[Chan790]

34. The problem is the same as last time.

The fare increase doesn't represent a cost increase, it represents a subsidization of the rest of the MTA and NYDOT budget. They can't raise bridge, tunnel and highway tolls without the suburban and rural GOP up in Albany pitching a fit so they balance the transit budget on the backs of the city-dwellers.

It's all about subsidizing car travel for the driving (read: suburban wealthy commuter) class. It's never called class warfare when they do it to us. Remember this ratio: 9:1. Every $1 spent by the state of NY on the subway system creates $9 in economic growth as reflected in tax revenues. That's their own numbers. Every dollar spent on automotive transport by comparison creates another $2 in expenses.

[uncommon]

37. If that's the case, then New Yorkers need to bug the shit out of their reps.

But honestly, the price itself hardly seems unfair to those of us who expend a lot more.

[wickerwoman]

41. And taking the bus or subway

is a hell of a lot less convenient than owning a car. Plus it's better for the environment and uses less non-renewable energy.

It should be cheaper. A lot cheaper. Taking mass transit is a behavior every other city in the world is trying to encourage.

Your car may be expensive but you're still only paying a fraction of the real social and environmental cost of private automobile ownership, whereas mass transit riders (who are generally some of the poorest people in any area) as a question of social equity and environmental responsibility, should be *heavily* subsidized- much more than they are at present.

[proud2BlibKansan]

23. Wow. I wish my monthly transportation expense was only $130!!

I pay slightly less than that for car insurance. Add in my gasoline and car payment and I am spending more than 4 times that much to drive a car in a city with a crappy public transportation system.

[slackmaster]

27. It's more than that. It's a membership card that gets you the entire New York Transit experience.

:hide:

[activa8tr]

38. People in the burbs of Boston pay MUCH MORE THAN THAT!

Sorry, ignorant of NYC, but, as far as I know, NYC has more subways and bus routes for 8-10 times as many people as in Boston.

A good Boston train/bus/subway pass: $165 a month.

State workers get no discount. Some employers like MIT, (in Cambridge) pay 1/2 the cost for their staff, to keep the number of cars down on the roads.

[KamaAina]

45. Yes, but they're in the 'burbs

the MetroCard is the equivalent of a CharlieCard for T bus, subway and Green Line only -- no commuter rail.

[justinaforjustice]

40. As Usual in U.S., Working People Get Hit Hardest. Here It's Cheap.

With the astronomical parking fees in N.Y.City, anyone who chooses to drive a car into N.Y.C. could afford a much higher bridge/tunnel toll. But no, it is the hard scrabble folks who take the subway who have to pay the higher fares.

We are very lucky here in Mérida, Venezuela. The bus fare is about 20 cents to go anywhere in the city, and there are tons of buses available until 9:30 p.m. or so. In this long, narrow city, the traffic is very bad, so I gave up on owning a car and let the bus drivers worry about the traffic while I concentrate on reading a book or newspaper. Not having to worry about finding a parking place or paying insurance and registrations fee is a boon as well. Not having a car is extremely healthy as well, as I walk rather than drive while doing all my errands.

[WillowTree]

46. Welcome to the Real World

[Chan790]

49. Thankul for your insightful commentary.

You've helped me to more-clearly understand this issue with your rational explanation of the causes of the fare-hike and its' necessity.

Ass.