It's Official: MTA Tells Us To Go Eff Ourselves

[Matt Molnar]

The MTA approved the proposed fare and toll hikes this morning.

MetroCard (effective March 2nd)
30-day: $81 (+$5)
7-day: $25 (+$1)
14-day: $47 (new card type)
7-day express bus: $41 (unchanged)
Pay-per-ride fare: $2 (unchanged)
Express bus fare: $5 (unchanged)
Pay-per-ride MetroCard bonus: 15% (down from 20%, but bonus now kicks in at $7 rather than $10)

LIRR and Metro-North (effective March 1st)
Weekly and monthly passes: Going up between 3.76% and 4.25%

MTA Bridges and Tunnels (effective March 16th)
All EZ-Pass tolls: +3.8%

[Matt Molnar]

Now that I'm resigned to the fact that my fare is going up, I am not going to complain about that anymore. However it does not make any sense to me that the base $2 fare is not going up. The only people who pay that are visitors and tourists, not regular commuters...they should pay more. A $2.50 fare is not going to be a deal breaker among people shopping for vacations, especially our bajillion European visitors who a.)pay a lot more for their public transport and b.)are happy to take advantage of the Euro>$ exchange rate. :evil:

[Mellyrose]

Mother effer.

[RDU-JFK]

heh and it was only 2 years ago that the greedy MTA employees decided to strike right before Christmas...

[cancidas]

heh and it was only 2 years ago that the greedy MTA employees decided to strike right before Christmas...

i remember that very well. my car was dead at the time, and i got a ride to work that morning, but had to walk from LGA to my front door. truth be told, it wasn't that bad a walk and only took me 2 hours from door to door. i ended up getting a rental car the next afternoon because i would have had to make the trip to and from pearl river, NY where my fam was for the weekend.