MTA FARE HEARINGS: POINTS YOU CAN MAKE

THE FACTS
The MTA has proposed hiking transit fares for 2008. It has announced a series of public hearings. The schedule can be found by going to: www.mta.info/mta/news/hearings/index.html.

The MTA has offered two fare hike options. The first calls for raising the base fare from $2.00 to $2.25 and increasing the cost of the current six-rides-for-the-price-of-five discount from $1.67-a-ride to $1.88. That’s around a 12.5% increase. Passes would go up 4%. The second option would eliminate the 6-for-5 MetroCard, replacing it with a card costing $2.00 for a ride during peak periods and $1.50 during the off-peak. This option would also raise the 30-day unlimited-ride MetroCard by $6.00, from the current $76 to $82.

The NYPIRG Straphangers Campaign has prepared this fact sheet to help riders and officials prepare for the public hearings. It is vital to speak up for decent and affordable transit.

Fare Box Burden on Riders*
NYC subways and buses – 55%
Boston – 29%
Chicago –43%
Los Angeles – 23%
Philadelphia – 37%
NJ Transit – 37%
San Francisco – 51%
Washington, D.C. – 40
Top 50 Cities – 37%
------------
*National Transit Data Base, Federal Transit Administration, 2005 and 2006

The MTA’s proposed fare hike is too much. Let’s take the 6-for-5 pay-per-ride bonus, currently used for 40% of all trips. Under one MTA option, the 6-for-5 bonus would cost 21-cents more a ride – or up to $109 more per year. Under the peak/off peak option – for many riders without the flexibility to travel off-peak – their pay-per-ride costs would go up a whopping 20% or 33-cents – from $1.67 using the current pay-per-ride bonus to $2.00 a ride. That adds up to $172 a year!

Many of the most vulnerable New Yorkers would bear the brunt of the increase. For the home health aide (earns $21,160 a year on average), teacher’s assistant ($23,840) or cook ($17,000 to $26,000) a fare hike of this size will be a serious hardship.

Riders already pay more than fair share. In 2005, the MTA New York City Transit told federal transit officials that the fare burden on its riders was 55%. The national average for the top 50 transit systems is 37%. MTA CEO Lee Sander told a state legislative committee this January: “In 2007, MTA expects to generate $5.4 billion, or 60%, of its total $9.2 billion in operating revenues primarily from fares and tolls. This is a phenomenally high fare box return.

The MTA does have real fiscal woes … That’s because the system is facing a big increase in costs. Much of the MTA’s long-term deficit is caused by growing interest on the $32 billion in bonds. The MTA has been forced to borrow vast sums. to make up for a lack of city and state aid badly needed to fund key repairs to the century-old transit system.

Borrowing costs will eat up an astonishing 20% of the MTA’s costs by the end of the decade. “Debt service” will have increased 82% in the last four years, from $848 million a year in 2004 to $1.546 billion in 2008. We think it is only fair to acknowledge that the MTA has a “structural” deficit that will require new revenues in future years to address recurring deficits caused by increased debt payments.

... But there are better ways to address them. The Straphangers Campaign has developed a “riders’ plan” to address MTA finances. It calls for cutting the proposed fare hike in half by increasing State and City aid to transit.

Here’s how it would work: The MTA plans to raise $262 million from its proposed fare hike. Our “riders’ plan” calls for the riders to pick up half of the $262 million. The City, State and surrounding counties would pay the other $130 million. The riders’ plan would cost the State only $65 million; the remaining $65 million would come from the City and suburbs.

Right now, the entire burden is on the riders. That’s not fair. Asking riders to contribute is one thing; hitting them with a quarter fare hike without asking Albany or City Hall to contribute is another. It’s high time for greater support by the State. There has been no new direct State aid or City aid to the MTA since 1995.

No fare hike should happen before March 31, 2008. As ten groups wrote in urging the MTA to delay any fare hike until the end of March, “This the date by which the state legislature and New York City Council have to decide on the recommendations of the traffic congestion mitigation commission recently created by the state legislature. The commission will be considering [a] congestion pricing proposal, which would include new transit funding. On that same day, the MTA is required to submit its five-year, multi-billion dollar capital rebuilding plan, giving the public its detailed program for what repairs will be slated between 2008 and 2013. Our groups feel strongly that the whole range of transit funding — from operations to capital needs — should be considered as a whole, rather than piecemeal.” Signers include the Regional Plan Association, Environment Defense, and NYC Environmental Justice Alliance.

There’s one piece of good news in the MTA’s proposal. Both of the MTA’s fare options propose 14-day unlimited-ride MetroCards. This pass allows lower income riders greater access to a better discount depending upon how it is priced. That’s a step forward - and gives us hope that the rest of the MTA plan can be made better.

Fare Hike 08: What the Straphangers Campaign Says | What the MTA Says | Public Hearing Information