NYC MTA Question

[trinityvixen]

Browsing the MTA's website, I've managed to find the news about the fare increases. The MTA are a bunch of bastards, this was never in doubt, but man, they must be shitheads not to bother advertising these fare increases better. If you have to look for an impending increase (impending as in less than a month until it hits), they're not bothering to tell you. Instead, they're just hoping the schmucks go to the Metrocard machines without paying attention, so that, when the commuters buy their monthly unlimiteds, six more dollars in the hole goes unnoticed.

That rant aside, the MTA is so generously giving people who have bought unlimited cards at the lower price until April 3rd to use them. So, here's my question: is that you have to use up all 30 days worth on travel by the third or is it that you have to use it the first day before the third and the thirty days goes on from there. Is it "you have 30 days if they end on April 3rd or else you have whatever you have until the 3rd"? Or is it "you have 30 days from whenever you use it, but if you try to use a $70 unlimited after April 3rd for the first time, you're screwed"?

God, I HATE THE FUCKING MTA. The NYC transit system is the best there is on the planet--runs all night, runs more or less on schedule, covers a huge fucking area, I mean, this is the best system there could be. It's just managed by jerks and idiots who see the huge monies we throw into it as their personal spending accounts. It's wastefully managed, sinfully so. The fare increases every year are getting out of hand, big time, and you know it would be okay if they were, say, making sure things ran on time better, or paid their workers more, but I'll be goddamned if that's what's happening. And stupid fucking Bloomberg wants to bring the Olympics here. Right. When the fans can't travel for less than $5 a ride (one way!), I'm sure it'll be a magical fucking Olympic experience.

Comments

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

It's not that it wasn't, it's that they made the announcement about a month ago and stopped mentioning it. I'm sorry, but we have to remind people 24/7 that Christmas is the fucking 25th of December, so why would they assume everyone's going to magically remember that Feb 27th is the cut off date? Fucking MTA.

That said, the unlimiteds are still worth it, and the reason they're being targeted is *because* they're still worth it. That's the MTA's real problem. These assholes cook up the Metrocard and think nothing of the bonuses they give until, a few years later, they realize that people are paying less with the unlimiteds and the bonuses than they were before the fares were raised--apparently, people spent on average anywhere from 1.25 to almost 1.50 when they used the monthlies. So, since the MTA didn't realize people will rape anything they can, they got thrown in a hole where they weren't bilking customers the $2-a-ride they planned on. Hell, I'm not sure they ever even collected the buck-fifty when it cost that much. I know we raped out unlimited dailies often enough to pay less than a dollar a ride.

I still want to know what the shit to do about this card problem. I think I might just have to call the bastards because it's not sufficiently explained.

[wellgull.livejournal.com]

No, they knew the unlimiteds would be a deal. That was publicized in the commentary about the plan -- that "hey, it's not so bad, if you're getting an unlimited you're paying basically the same as your old rate."

The real problem here is that we have vastly insufficient subsidies for the MTA. Yes, yes, subsidies are socialist blah blah fscking blah. (I know you don't really think that.) But think about it -- some jerk from New Jersey gets to drive his car on our roads all he likes, nearly running me off my bike and probably someday hitting a pedestrian on the sidewalk, and doesn't pay a dime to NY taxes. We're subsidizing the roadways, merely by the fact that you don't have to pay to use them. Why shouldn't the MTA get just as much money?

One of my anarchist friends makes it a point to hop the turnstile whenever he won't get caught, for precisely this reason... and hey, it'll be all the easier to do with the booth closures! ...bastards.

[hslayer.livejournal.com]

Subsidies would make sense, but I'm not sure where the rant about NJ drivers comes from. I mean, I could go on all day about NJ drivers, but that has to do with their lack of driving skill, not with them failing to pay for the roads. It isn't their fault that the exorbitant tolls they pay are to the port authority rather than the MTA, and I tend to think that the commuter tax was unfair, even now that I don't work in the city. (I wouldn't want to pay CT state income tax in addition to NY, either.)

Basically, I agree with your point, though not with your argument.

[wellgull.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I did a poor job of expressing the relevance of the argument. The point was meant to be: there's a massive subsidy imbalance between the roads (which we pay for, use them or not, and which anyone can use, pay or not), and the subway/MTA. If our taxes are going to pay for 100% of a public good for which we aren't even the prime beneficiaries*, shouldn't they also pay for at least some of a public good that we're actually using? Rather than consistently increasing the fees on the users of that system? it's like giving away money in foreign aid when American children/seniors are starving. You ought to take care of your own, too. I'm not blaming NJ drivers for not paying for things, just saying that something's wrong with the allocations when we're more generous to visitors than to ourselves.

*And I'll admit, sure, it's more complicated than that, because the MTA receives its subsidy from the state rather than the city. So, state taxes are paying for it, not just local ones. I'd just argue that the state doesn't apportion enough subsidy, relative to the income the city brings to the state coffers. Also, another flaw here is that even an urban resident gets benefit from the roads. Goods are brought in from truck, we have taxis, I can ride my bike on them (if the NJ drivers don't kill me first... heh). But relatively speaking, the average NYC resident gets less out of them than visitors. Certainly on a dollar basis, doubly so when you cross state lines.

[wellgull.livejournal.com]

And of course you may still totally disagree with that. :)

[hslayer.livejournal.com]

Ah, I see. With that, I agree (although I think city taxes might make more sense, if the analogy is roads). I'd have no problem with more (progressive) taxes and lower (very much regressive) mass-transit fares, with the one paying for the other.

Also, the MTA isn't completely autonomous. The city can veto a fare hike. And yet, the MTA's fare increase (which, especially on unlimited-rides, affects commuters [inter- and intra-city] more than anyone else) coincides with a huge ad blitz to get businesses to move back into lower Manhattan, and some major tax breaks in various industrial-promoting zones around town. Is that supposed to be a sick form of synergy?