MTA raises train fares

There ARE police assigned to Brewster yard - it's a police substation. While not one of the busiest on the property - the cell does get use. Thats where they bring prisoners from the upper harlem line to be pocessed.

Noel Weaver wrote: One thing that I think should happen is to re-open Grand Central during the late night hours and run trains between 1:30AM and 5:30AM. Not
necessarily every hour but at least something to get home on during the
night. I do not think that this would result in a significant increase in the
costs of operating the service and they could impose a slight surcharge on
trips during the above night time hours. New York is the "city that never
sleeps", the subways and the Long Island never sleep and Metro-North
should never sleep either.
Noel Weaver

Good idea. The NY Times mentioned a while back that the GCT area going rate for cabs and limos to Greenwich, Scarsdale, Irvington after the last train is about $150. A $3 surcharge on the 230 am or 4 am train would prob be no sweat.

They line up beginning at 11.30pm, the article said.

Terminal Proceed wrote:There ARE police assigned to Brewster yard - it's a police substation. While not one of the busiest on the property - the cell does get use. Thats where they bring prisoners from the upper harlem line to be pocessed.

There may be police now in Brewster but when I had a regular job on the
line to Brewster in the mid 1980's, there were no police there on any kind
of a regular basis.
Still think it was a waste of money, they could use existing state or local
police facilities for the same purpose.
Noel Weaver

All of Pataki’s (Don't care if I miss-spelled it at this point) appointees unanimously voted for the fare increase. So we know where the blame goes there.

Bloomberg claims he ordered his appointees to vote against it. But he should've been more vocal. He faces re-election soon and by being more vocal, this could have helped his chances for re-election. Same for what's his name, but he obviously showed that he's not interested. I mean no press conference on the issue or anything.

I too do have the utmost respect for the MTA employees that work hard on trains, buses and subways (I do see allot of slackers sometimes on the 42nd Street Shuttle holding us up talking and joking around, but there could be more to that). I failed to make it clearer in my previous post that my gripe too is with the highest levels of that agency.

Fare hikes in my view should be a last resort.

I like the idea of adding late late night service, with an extra charge.
Make those trains another fare group (e.g. Late Peak ).

In Paris, "owl" service on the Metro and RER has a surcharge of one Euro (about $1.30) for late night cash fares. I don't think it applies to monthly cards.

OK, my intent is not to start a flame fest, but I do believe the MTA has some issues that need to be resolved.

1) The fares are too low for the daily commuters. The Monthly fare from Poughkeepsie to Grand Central is $329.00. Figure 20 work days, or 40 trips at $8.23 a trip. That's .12 cents a mile. The people using the train can most assuredly afford it, and it's wrong to continue the level of subsidy for these trips. They should be carrying more of their own weight. I live in Ulster County, having moved from Dutchess last year where I work. I CAN NOT afford to live in the county that I work in because of the huge influx of high paying commuters getting a very cheap ride. In addition, I am taxed for a service I use occasionally on the weekends. The same trip costs me .18 cents, or $12.00 dollars each way.

2) Metro North and the Long Island railroad just keep buying new equipment, and not planning for any overhauls. Why did the Long Island railroad remove from service the 10 C-1 cars that were 5 years old and sell them, just to replace them with C-3's? Also, why are the M-7's outright replacing the M-1's? They should add new ones to improve the number of available cars and add to service. Then start overhauling the M-1's, which are stainless steel and have a far longer life then carbon steel cars. The same goes for Metro North. Yes, the 1100's needed to be replaced, but what's with all the M-7s they are getting? I have heard zippo about any M-1 overhauls.. Heck, the M-3's really need to be overhauled.

3)The state of Connecticut, having just purchased rail cars from Virginia to keep Metro North going this winter, when Metro north now has the West of Hudson cars, that may be scrapped or sold!!!

This is just on the train side. The MTA being an Authority in New York State has to answer to no one.

It was wrong for their executives to give themselves raises while they are cutting jobs. I'm not going to pick on the Subway riders, but they should cover more of their share too. Even at full price, ($2.00 a ride), that's 80 dollars a month to go back and forth to work. I bet people spend more than that on coffee everyday.

Don't think for a minute that I am suggesting cutting service or some draconian change. Good, frequent public transportation is vital to survival. But I am not offered any of it, yet I have to pay the price for it.

I will only say I disagree with a blanket statement that all monthly commuters can afford to pay more. Not everyone that commutes makes $80,000 a year...I'm barely scraping by.

I'm a college student on co-op and as you know us college students are broke as it is. I work for six months and the 175 dollars I pay a month really cuts into my pockets. That's book money when you add up the six months.

Raising the fares even more will eventually discourage potential commuters from working in the city as well as those making nowhere near the 6 figure salaries. I believe when the commuter tax was dropped more people began to work in NYC thereby helping the city's economy thrive. I would say it's just as bad if not worse than bringing back the commuter tax but I don't know of the type of fares you had in mind.

I just saw on the news that (I forget the name for them but.........) "extreme commuters" for lack of better words (Commuters that have 1 1/2+ hr one-way commutes) is the fastest growing number of workers in NYC. (Obviously due to cost of living). Nobody's going to want to work when the commute eventually becomes financially unfeasible.

I guess the bottom line is you want to keep fares low enough where driving will be cheaper even though that's virtually an "impossibility".

I Think MNRR, NYCT, LIRR should've remained seperate entities. That would've kept fares in check. If MNRR (which is virtually the only convenient way into the city from the suburbs during the work week) raised fares, people would be inclined to drive as far down as possible where they were close to NYCT subways and hop on the subway. Same thing with LIRR.

The best idea I heard so far is reverse peak during the rush hours. But the majority of the reverse commuters are not leaving from GCT or 125th street. Most of these workers are leaving from the intermediate stops like Fordham, resulting in no revenue gains. Running trains 24 hours would make sense except that it would make GCT look like it did 25 years ago a homeless shelter. MTA needs to be creative and find new revenue streams like having stations named after corporations on the subways.

Somewhere in the depths of railroad,net is a thread which compares the monthly commuter cost from Hudson and Rhinecliff to NYP via Amtrak, and the much less comfortable trip from Poughkeepsie to GCT. A lot of people buy ATK monthly tickets, which are about 35% of what 40 one way tickets cost.

It would probably be difficult to operate a fare schedule which charged more to a two million a year hedge fund trader or bond fund manager than it charged a cleaning lady going to Scarsdale. That's how fines in Finland are imposed though. Speeding is 1% of your annual salary (with a minimum of X), robbery has a minimum fine and the same jail time, etc.

Spro wrote:OK, my intent is not to start a flame fest, but I do believe the MTA has some issues that need to be resolved.

1) The fares are too low for the daily commuters. The Monthly fare from Poughkeepsie to Grand Central is $329.00. Figure 20 work days, or 40 trips at $8.23 a trip. That's .12 cents a mile. The people using the train can most assuredly afford it, and it's wrong to continue the level of subsidy for these trips. They should be carrying more of their own weight. I live in Ulster County, having moved from Dutchess last year where I work. I CAN NOT afford to live in the county that I work in because of the huge influx of high paying commuters getting a very cheap ride. In addition, I am taxed for a service I use occasionally on the weekends. The same trip costs me .18 cents, or $12.00 dollars each way.

The MTA does indeed have many issues to resolve, but your blanket assertion that monthly commuters can surely afford more is indeed a nice way to start a flame war. Sticking it to the customer while the MTA brass & Pataki's cronies cruise around town in Limos isn't the solution.

A lot of people who live in NYC can't afford to live their, hence they live in the burbs. Doesn't mean we're all stinking rich. The taxes "up here" have gone through the roof, my assessment has gone up 300% in 5 years. So have my taxes. On top of my $300 monthly ticket, add monthly MetroCards in as well, and while your at it throw in my $350 a year to park my car. God forbid I don't get to the lot before 8:00 or the only parking space is 3/4's of a mile away., if available at all.......

I don't mind paying my fair share, but not when you here and see the stories about $$$$ bing p***ed out the window.

I couldn't agree more with PutnamJct myself. The fact of purchasing two seperate monthly tickets was a point I forgot to make in my last post as well.