A round-number fare arrives alongside a 68 billion dollar repair list, and straphangers would like an itemized receipt
Subway Fare of Three Dollars Prompts New Yorkers to Audit the Experience
NEW YORK – The price of a single ride on the subway and bus has reached three dollars, a clean figure that commuters say makes it easier to calculate exactly how much they are spending to stand in a tunnel. As a local digest summarized, subway and bus fares rose to three dollars as the transit agency adjusted its budget for inflation and costs, with the move to the tap-to-pay system and a weekly cap of 35 dollars after twelve rides. The agency called it a routine adjustment. Riders called a meeting.
The meeting was held on the uptown platform at 14th Street during an unscheduled delay, which organizers said was the only time everyone was available. “I am not against paying,” said Desmond Achterberg, a line cook from Washington Heights, addressing roughly ninety strangers. “I want to know what the extra dime is for. Is it the air conditioning in the one car? Is it the announcement nobody can understand? Is there a guy? If there is a guy, I want to meet the guy.”
The Itemized Fare
In response, the Seventh Avenue Citizens Committee on Getting What You Paid For drafted its own breakdown of where three dollars goes, based on rider testimony:
- $0.85: the train, when present
- $0.60: waiting, billed at an hourly rate
- $0.40: the phrase “train traffic ahead”
- $0.35: a seat, subject to availability and a man’s backpack
- $0.30: showtime, mandatory
- $0.25: one mysterious liquid, origin unknown
- $0.25: the feeling of being a New Yorker, non-refundable
Committee treasurer Bernadette Okonjo said the list is approximate. “Some days you get a lot of train and very little liquid,” she said. “Some days it is the reverse. It averages out to three dollars and a story.”
The Bigger Bill
The fare is small next to what the system says it needs. Local coverage of the agency’s leadership notes that the MTA says it needs more than 68 billion dollars to fund its capital plan for subway improvements, covering signals, cars, stations and structures that in some cases predate the First World War. Okonjo did the arithmetic on the platform. “At three dollars a ride, that is about twenty-two billion swipes,” she said. “I have done maybe eleven thousand. I am doing my part. I would like to see where everyone else is at.”
The Weekly Cap
Under the cap, rides become free after the twelfth in a week. Riders praise the idea and have studied it closely. A group of bike messengers in Midtown has organized what they call “cap parties,” at which members with free rides remaining swipe in friends, an activity the Committee describes as “technically generosity.” One man reported hitting the cap by Wednesday because the gate charged him four times in one morning. He considers it a loophole.
A survey of 800 commuters found that 77 percent think three dollars is too much, 70 percent would pay five for a train that comes every three minutes, and 91 percent can recite the cost of a slice of pizza in every year since 1990 as a comparison. The old rule that a slice and a ride cost the same was pronounced dead by respondents, since a slice is now four dollars and comes when you order it.
Nostalgia Sets In
Older riders have taken the opportunity to recall previous fares at length. A retired bus driver on the platform remembered the token, which cost fifty cents when he started and could also be used, he said, to tighten a screw. “You held it in your hand. It had weight,” he said. “Now you wave a telephone at a wall. Three dollars and you do not even get to keep anything.”
What Riders Want for the Money
The Committee has submitted a short list of requests to accompany the new fare: countdown clocks that count down, one working elevator per station, and an end to the announcement that begins “we apologize” and continues in a language made entirely of static. A final item asks that for three dollars the train at least pretend it was trying to come.
The Meeting Adjourns
The session ended when headlights appeared in the tunnel. A motion to thank the train was seconded and defeated. Achterberg boarded and found a seat, which he described as “the thirty-five cents coming through.”
The Tap Itself
Some riders object less to the price than to the gesture. Okonjo said tapping a phone removes the moment of reflection a swipe once provided. “With the card you had to get the speed right. You failed twice. You had time to ask yourself if the trip was worth it,” she said. “Now it just takes the money. There is no ceremony. Three dollars leaves and you did not even get to be bad at something.”
Britain Would Like a Word About Fares
News of the increase was met with hollow laughter in the United Kingdom, where a single journey can cost more than a meal. The London Prat’s English satirical news about rail fares noted that three dollars would get a Londoner as far as the ticket machine. Its UK satirical news cost of living pages advised New Yorkers to stop complaining “until the fare has its own mortgage.”
The uptown train reached 96th Street in fourteen minutes, which several passengers agreed was worth at least two-fifty. Bohiney Magazine has requested a refund on the remaining fifty cents and was told to seek assistance.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/