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]

What about the cab fare hikes?? There's a total of about four hours in the day when you won't pay extra for a cab. There's the night fare increase, the peak-hours increase, the "You're using the cab and you need it, so we're charging you extra for it" increase.

[wellgull.livejournal.com]

More misguided economics, as I understand it. The argument I've seen for the cab fare hike was to improve congestion. (Now, cabbies make a ridiculously poor take-home, so they could use the extra money. I don't begrudge them that.) But anyway, the argument put forth was that there's too much congestion, demand way exceeds the supply and the capacity the roads are capable of.

So the obvious answer is, start limiting the use of single-person automobiles in the city. (hslayer probably wouldn't have liked this back when he worked in town, and I understand that it would suck for his situation. Sympathy for that, but it's an intractable situation.) Charge a considerable fee to single-passenger drivers at the bridges and tunnels. This is the most mass-transit-friendly city in America, we could do this (and Giuliani did, for downtown Manhattan, shortly after 9/11 due to traffic constraints from the new security measures). Use the funds for something socially beneficial, ideally -- hey maybe even a subway subsidy -- but the point is, collect them.

Having reduced the congestion from wasteful commuters (I'm not even talking about gas, single-occupant cars take up a disproportionate amount of available roadspace), you can go on to increase cab capacity. Meaning rather than trying to choke demand by charging a higher price, you can increase supply; = more people able to take cabs when drunk, moving stuff, or it's freezing, etc.

What about the cabbie incomes? The reason those are so low is because of high costs: to drive a yellow cab, you need a medallion. You can rent one, along with the car -- but that's hugely expensive, costing perhaps half of a driver's daily income (for their 12-hour shifts). Because people use these medallions as an investment, renting them out at profit. If the city isntead held them (and it's a darn *city license* anyway), you wouldn't have the same profiteering aspect. Or if you don't reclaim a legally mandated public good as the property of the public, you could just increase medallion supply, then daily medallion rental rates go down, cab driver net income rises nevertheless, cab fare stays low, good for cabbies, good for the NYC residents, in fact good for pretty much everybody except the medallion profiteers. Note that these are people who are exploiting immigrant labor by taking a large cut of an artificially scarce -- in fact a completely fictional -- resource, and also driving down the quality of NYC cab service while necessitating a higher price to the consumer -- so how bad can you really feel that their investment suddenly becomes worthless...

One answer might be to deregulate the cabs, but basically a much better one is smarter regulation that isn't as corrupt/open to profiteering.

Refs, on cab driver life, and a nice long exposition on the medallion system.

[viridian.livejournal.com]

(hslayer probably wouldn't have liked this back when he worked in town, and I understand that it would suck for his situation.

Especially considering the fact that even when I could catch a ride in with him, I didn't, because his car + slow-moving traffic makes me carsick. It was also often a waste of my time, because taking the train into Grand Central was a whole lot faster than getting out at Columbia, taking the subway down to Times Square, and then taking the S. I didn't even need a Metrocard while I was commuting directly into Grand Central, because I worked very close.

At any rate, with the Metro North fare increasing as well, I'm only going to be able to make it into the city once I have a job there. Blehhh. So much for any delusions of a social life!

[hslayer.livejournal.com]

Remember they were actually looking at a fee for driving into midtown, like what's implemented in London. It's true the fact that Manhattan is an island makes the bridges and tunnels a more convenient place to collect such a fee, but it makes less sense. When I drove into Columbia, the traffic problem wasn't on Broadway. That plan would also pretty much require doing away with EZ-Pass, which is the only thing keeping the bridge and tunnel crossings manageable. I'll note, though, that I think anyone attempting to drive into midtown is a moron, and will always take the MetroNorth or pull off some form of park-and-ride when I'm headed there.

And at least I don't drive an SUV. Whether driving or walking in Manhattan, there's nothing I love more than seeing a Hummer rumbling down a narrow cross-street or trying to parallel park. >_