MTA Board Votes To Increase Fares, Despite Governor's Pledge

MTA board members voted on Wednesday to once again increase subway fares, raising the weekly MetroCard price to $33 and bringing a monthly pass to $127, up from $121. The hike, which does not impact the $2.75 base fare, will go into effect on April 21st. Tolls on most MTA bridges and tunnels will also see an increase of about 36 cents.

“This is painful for a lot of people, but it wasn’t exactly a mugging," Acting MTA Chairman Freddy Ferrer told reporters.

The decision comes after a planned vote on the fare hike was delayed last month, with some board members citing the need to tie any cost increase to improved subway performance. The price hike voted on today, which ends the pay-per-ride discount, does not include a performance metric for subway service. The MTA's decision to push back the vote cost the authority an estimated $30 million, according to transit officials.

The vote also comes a day after Governor Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio released a plan to create new dedicated funding streams for the subway, via congestion pricing, future revenues from legalized marijuana, and a new internet sales tax. The governor—who appoints a plurality of MTA board members and its acting chairman, and effectively controls the authority—had repeatedly vowed not to raise fares until subway service improves.

"I would support canceling the fare hike because the service is not what people deserve," Cuomo said during a debate this summer with his opponent in the Democratic primary, Cynthia Nixon.

But speaking on the Brian Lehrer Show on Tuesday, Cuomo seemed to suggest that he was referring to bigger increases in the future, not today's "regularly scheduled fare hike," as he put it. “My point was we have to stop these incremental movements, which don't address the problem,” the governor claimed.

A spokesperson for the Governor's Office would not say whether Cuomo had tried to stop this fare hike, or what had happened to the secret alternative plan that the governor was reportedly preparing to spare riders from an increase.

According to transit leaders, the MTA needs the fare increase in order to close its growing budget hole, which could necessitate service cuts, further driving down revenues as more riders flee the transit system. Last week, the MTA admitted that daily subway ridership had fallen by 5.44 million in 2018, while bus ridership had dropped by nearly 10 percent.

Without today's increase, the MTA's yawning budget deficit would have grown to a $1.6 billion shortfall in 2022. But even with this new jump, the MTA still faces a $500 million operating budget deficit next year, and a shortfall of about $1 billion by 2022. Meanwhile, transit officials now place the total cost of reviving the system at roughly $60 billion.

As part of his congestion pricing announcement this week, Cuomo also unveiled a restructuring of the MTA, which he says will streamline the authority's decision-making processes.

"It's a 1960-style holding company with a 1960-sytle mentality," Cuomo told Lehrer. "We have to consolidate the functions at the MTA. Bring in a different culture. Make the Board functional and operational so we know that we're getting efficiency from the riders' fare."

While the reaction among transit advocates has been mixed, the good government group Reinvent Albany said they were concerned that the plan appeared to sideline New York City Transit Authority President Andy Byford, while allowing the governor to exercise even more power over the authority. They also accused the governor of releasing the plan as "another distraction" from his unmet 2015 pledge to give the MTA $8.3 billion—only $1 billion of which has been allocated so far.

"This is not the time to make major changes to redistribute power over the MTA’s governance structure, as there are too many stakeholders at risk," the group said. "The MTA’s biggest organizational problem is the Governor’s endless political meddling and sidelining of the MTA and NYC Transit professional staff."

Additional reporting by Stephen Nessen.