MTA approves increasing NYC subway, bus fares to $2.90 by end of August
New York’s transit board approved a hike in subway and bus base fares for the first time since 2015 with an increase from $2.75 to $2.90, kicking off before Labor Day.
At Wednesday’s board meeting, MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber explained the fare increase was necessary.
“We need this to be responsible,” the transit chief said, but acknowledged that the increased cost to riders would “not [be] without its downsides.”
“Because anytime you’re asking people to pay a little more, you know that has consequences,” he said.
The Albany-controlled agency will enact the fare increases on August 20 when it also will increase the cost of most Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North tickets by 5.5 percent.
Bridge and tunnel tolls will also rise by 6 percent for drivers paying via E-ZPass and 10 percent for those paying by mail on August 6.
Officials first outlined the hikes in May, which will raise approximately $300 million annually for the agency.
Subway and bus fares will increase from $2.75 to $2.90 starting in August. J. Messerschmidt
That’s slightly less than half of the $690 million it lost to fare-beating last year.
Fares last increased for subways and buses in 2019, when officials hiked the prices of weekly and monthly MetroCards and nixed the cash bonuses given to straphangers who loaded cash in bulk onto their cards.
And it’s the first time the base fare has increased since 2015, when officials first rolled out the $2.75-per-ride fare.
The hike will push the cost of a weekly MetroCard to $34.
It’s the first fare increase for the subways and buses since 2015. Christopher Sadowski
OMNY users will get free rides for the week after spending $34 and the agency is expanding the fare cap program to start counting when riders first tap during a seven-day period.
Currently the clock on the fare cap starts every Monday and ends on Sundays.
Monthly MetroCards will now cost $132 and there is still no corresponding discount program on OMNY.
The package will expand discounts for New Yorkers riding the two commuter railroads inside of the city, offering a new flat $7 ticket to ride peak-hour trains in addition to the current $5 fare for off-peak travel.
The fare hike will raise approximately $300 million annually for the MTA. William C. Lopez
But it makes other changes to the railroad fares including nixing the discounted 20-ticket packs and the Atlantic Ticket program, which offered discounts for riders heading in from southeast Queens to Brooklyn’s Atlantic Terminal, where they often switched to the subways.
Additionally, fares for those riding Metro-North’s service west of the Hudson River will remain flat.
The hike was required under the budget deal struck between Gov. Kathy Hochul and state lawmakers in the spring, which also raised the payroll tax on major employers in the five boroughs to replace the roughly $1 billion the MTA lost from the fare box because of COVID-era ridership declines.
Source: New York Post
