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

[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?