MTA Board Votes To Raise Fares And Tolls
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- The cost of your commute is going up.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority board voted Thursday to raise fares and tolls.
"I've recommended the fare and toll change options that are most favorable to our customers who use the services the most, our core constituency," said MTA Chairman and CEO Tom Prendergast.
MTA Board Votes To Raise Fares And Tolls
Base fares on subway and bus rides will go up by 25 cents, from $2.50 to $2.75. The 30-day unlimited MetroCard will increase by $4.50, from $112 to $116.50, and the seven-day unlimited card by $1, from $30 to $31.
The board also elected to keep MetroCard bonus discounts. Currently, riders receive a 5 percent bonus for every $5 they spend. That bonus will increase to 11 percent.
As a give back cash bonuses for using MetroCards will go up.
Metro-North and Long Island Rail Road fares will increase 4 percent.
Average fares will increase about $10.
For example traveling from Rockville Centre to Penn Station on the LIRR a monthly pass goes from $242 to $252 a month.
Bridge and tunnel tolls will also go up by 4 percent for E-ZPass users and about 6 percent to 10 percent for cash customers.
Prendergast called these increases modest, saying that they will preserve the health not just of the MTA but of the entire region, CBS2's Dave Carlin reported.
"It's never a good time to raise fares, but even so, we'd like to express our gratitude to MTA Chairman Tom Prendergast for cutting the fare hike in half and sticking to that decision despite voices telling him otherwise," said Gene Russianoff of the Straphangers Campaign.
The new rates take effect March 22.
MTA Board Votes To Raise Fares And Tolls
"Without a transit system that operates frequently and reliably and is keeping up with the times with technology and safety, our economy is not going to thrive," Veronica Vanterpool, executive director of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, told WCBS 880's Paul Murnane before the vote.
Vanterpool, however, said riders need to maintain pressure on lawmakers to keep transit promises as the MTA grapples with a gap in its capital funding budget reaching an estimated $15 billion.
"It's critically important that all the beneficiaries of this system contribute, and it's not just the transit riders, and that's often been the case, certainly on the operating side," Vanterpool told Murnane.
MTA Board Member Allen Cappelli warned Thursday there could be a "gargantuan increases" if the $15 billion hole in the capital budget is not plugged, 1010 WINS' Al Jones reported.
But Prendergast said, "I'm very confident at the end of the day we will get what we need to get to be able to run the system and maintain it."
Many commuters said they weren't pleased with the news.
"It doesn't make me happy," said Midtown resident Jerome Barthe. "I'm not for it. It's just the way it is."
"For those who have to use mass transit it's going to be a burden on them" one woman, named Jennifer, said.
The new rates go into effect March 22.
