I just bought a new Metrocard, and was again reminded of how badly we monthy unlimited users were hosed in the fare hike.
I only bring it up because of yesterday’s news of a $3 billion deficit in the MTA budget.
Where the hell is all the money going? If there are millions of rides everyday, that means there’s millions in revenue everyday. However, it seems like that money is already spent before they even have it.
I also love how casually they say that the missing money was just for maintenance and repairs….nothing major. It’s the lack of repairs and maintenance that has caused the subway system to crumble in the first place!
Then you look around at stations like 59th Columbus Cirlce which is taking 2+ years to refurbish and you wonder what the hell is going on. They can build 30 story apartment buildings in a year, but they can’t pour fresh concrete and lay some tiles in less than 2 when it comes to the subway.
It’s a big scam.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
SUBWAYblogger 
If you use your unlimited MetroCard only twice a day each day for the 30-day period, you end up paying a whopping $1.35 per ride. That’s cheaper than the subways used to be when we had tokens. I don’t think we really should complain too much about that fare when the MTA would really be justified in jacking up the price by a lot to capture appropriate fares on those MetroCards.
LikeLike
Also, they drive the train for you. You basically don’t have to do anything. I like that part. I might even pay more to ride the subway, considering all the cool and f’ed shit you get to see there. Its like a new show every day.
LikeLike
It’s not a scam – or at least, not in the way you think. The money that we spend on Metrocards only pays for part of the system; the rest comes from city, state and federal income taxes and bridge tolls. Giuliani, Bloomberg and Pataki have been steadily cutting the money paid to the MTA over the past fifteen years.
There’s also something called the Mortgage Recording Tax, which means that every time someone takes out a mortgage the MTA gets around one percent of the money borrowed. You may have noticed that there’s been a huge drop in people taking out mortgages over the past year. That means a huge drop in the MTA’s income.
The $3 billion – spread over five years – was supposed to be made up with money from congestion pricing. The Assembly members who expressed “skepticism” over congestion pricing promised to come up with another way to fund the needed repairs. Instead they cut $50 million from this year’s budget and gave it to the State DOT to build roads. How’s that for a scam?
http://capntransit.blogspot.com/2008/04/boondoggles-state-budget.html
LikeLike
59th Columbus Circle will NEVER be fixed! I don’t know what the hell the workers are doing there but they’re sure not working… It’s been like this forever and just seems to get worse…
So yea, I agree with you.. Where the hell is my extra money going? Especially when at least once a week my train is delayed due to “technical issues”!!
LikeLike
We just got destroyed by a Metro fare hike in DC too. My commute from Northern Virginia into DC now costs me an average of $10-15 extra per week. Ridiculous, and we will never see any benefit from it.
Great blog. I’m going to try to drive some DC readers your way – lots of shared outrage!
LikeLike
What about 53rd and Lex? It has taken the MTA years to fix two escalators, one elevator and clean the rest of the station.
LikeLike