“I am an essential worker who pays taxes, who barely makes enough to pay rent. I only take a three-stop route to get to work. And I decided that I am not going to pay. It is $110 that I save per month. If the City and the State have the means to finance the lives of young, lazy people, who have just arrived, who do not work. Workers also deserve some benefit,” says a Hispanic nursing assistant at a bus stop on 60th Street in Manhattan.
At the same station, another Hispanic woman contradicts this position: “If everyone decides what they are going to pay for and what they are not, then this will become chaos. That is, if you are hungry, go to the supermarket and grab everything for free.”
These are two visions, two anecdotes, two extremes that define part of a reality that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) highlighted again this week: nearly 47% of passengers on the Big Apple bus system did not even bother to pay the fare in the first quarter of this year.
Before the pandemic, an estimated 25% of bus riders were fare-free, but the temporary pandemic measure of waiving the fare and forcing passengers to board through the back door has become a habit that thousands are unwilling to change.
Leaders of the state agency warned this week that this trend of millions of free rides has cost the transit agency $300 million last year alone. But the problem is that the MTA’s financial picture is worsening, and that will result in system inefficiencies and further fare increases by 2025 at the latest.
MTA seeks “turnstiles”
MTA Chairman Janno Lieber explained that they are coming up with new methods to increase fare payments, including signage, education, environmental change and enforcement.
“You can’t have a police officer on every bus. We don’t want to have a situation where every unit has to be policed. This high rate of fare evasion is demoralizing for those who pay,” Lieber said.
There are other policies that have been identified as another push to skip the fare. And that is none other than the five bus routes that have been completely free since last year. That program is scheduled to end in September.
Subway works in limbo
Once again, MTA CFO Kevin Willens, in his presentation of the operating and budget plan for the end of July 2024, reveals discouraging numbers for the future. If no additional funding is received, no measures are taken against those who continue to “skip” paying fares, and even more so, if the $15 congestion charge for drivers traveling south of 60th Street in Manhattan is not applied, everything will get worse.
The most global figure is that the already existing deficit would be increased by $400 million by 2027.
So far, it is clear that a 4% increase in fares and tolls will have to be proposed in 2025 and 2027. But there are no precise accounts of the impact of the pause in congestion pricing in Manhattan beyond 2024. This point has not been included in the operating budget forecast.
The truth is that there is already a $15 billion deficit in the works and modernization program for the years 2020-2024, which means that many of the subway’s improvement and maintenance works are “on hold.”
In this labyrinth, where the way out for many is to impose a toll on drivers south of Manhattan, which would force more people to use the public transportation system and direct those new revenues to finance the “financial hole” of the MTA, more voices are emerging criticizing Governor Kathy Hochul for having halted this controversial charge, which should have started on June 30.
“We already know that the governor’s catastrophic error has put at risk $12 billion in contracts for MTA suppliers, $3 billion in internal capital work done by unionized workers, and 100,000 good-paying jobs in New York State,” said Rachel Fauss, an advisor to the organization Reinvent Albany.
Hochul’s office argues that the cancellation of the congestion charge was the result of an analysis of how devastating it would have been for the pocketbooks of the working class.
Passengers suffer the consequences
In response to the estimate that 47 percent of New York City bus riders do not pay, Riders Alliance lead organizer Jolyse Race said in a statement that New Yorkers should not accept blame for problems with public transportation, particularly buses, which she labeled as the “slowest in the country.”
“Bus fare collection is difficult to measure because many riders have unlimited MetroCards, have already paid for the subway or will pay for the subway. And just as NYPD overtime skyrockets at the turnstiles, bus fare enforcement is not free,” Race said.
For the activist, the solution is to start applying congestion pricing, allow boarding through all doors of the units and start working with the Mayor of New York City to build more bus lanes.
Faced with the transportation agency’s red numbers, New York Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli asked for explanations on how exactly the financial problems will affect the efficiency of the transportation system and the most important modernization works of a system where there are stations that are very deteriorated.
“There is a lot at stake for passengers and toll payers. The MTA must be transparent and communicate how its decisions will affect the safety, frequency and reliability of the system,” he recommended.
Second Avenue Line runs
Amid criticism for halting congestion pricing in Manhattan, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced she will provide $54 million in state funds to support the Second Avenue Subway Expansion project, which would extend the line to 125th Street in East Harlem.
With this financial support, the MTA can immediately proceed with work to relocate utility lines along Second Avenue and nearby streets, putting the project on track to move forward on schedule while broader funding issues are resolved.
“When I announced the pause on congestion pricing, I directed my team to think creatively about how to keep these investments moving forward. Now, we are committing the funding to continue this transformative project to meet the needs of all New Yorkers.”
The fact:
- 4% increase is expected in subway fares and tolls in 2025 and 2027