New York – MTA Chairman on 7.5% Fare Hike: “It’s Going to Happen”

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    Photo credit: APNew York – Attention, MetroCard swipers: the cost of a ride will definitely go up in 2013, MTA Chairman Joseph Lhota told NBC New York in an exclusive interview.

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    “How sure is that? It’s going to happen,” said Lhota, a former deputy mayor to Rudy Giuliani who took the reins of the money-starved agency late last year. He confirmed that previously speculated fare hikes in 2015 and 2017 will also happen, and that all of the jumps will be about 7.5 percent.

    While the exact fare increases haven’t been calculated, transit officials expect the base subway and bus fare, which is now $2.25, to rise to $2.50. MTA tolls would also go up; a 7.5 percent hike on a $6.50 toll means an increase to about $7.

    But the chief executive, who takes the No. 2 train every day from his home in Brooklyn and calls himself “rider/chairman,” told NBC New York there are other, more creative ways to make money and begin chipping away at the MTA’s $40 million budget gap.


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    21 Comments
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    5TResident
    Noble Member
    5TResident
    12 years ago

    Between $4 gas, $7 tolls, and $2.50 a subway ride, it may be time to go back to horses and wagons.

    Aryeh
    Aryeh
    12 years ago

    Every other major city subway system makes ours look like garbage. How about using advertising sponsorship more effectively, allowing food vendors to lease more space underground and capping retirement and salary benefits at 100K. Stop paying these clowns six figure salaries to run around in circles, and privatize this beast.

    RebKlemson
    RebKlemson
    12 years ago

    like the daughter of asher to yakov avinu, they’re just making sure you are good and ready when the day hits. then later they say “Oh why didn’t you complain back then?”. its too expensive to live here but the convenience is what keeps you

    12 years ago

    Hey Lhota, you’re becoming as bad as your predecesar Jay Walder! Brighton Beach is part of NYC, yet the MTA treats us as a Red Headed Step Child. You spend 3 years and hundreds of millions of dollars to redo our stations like Ocean Parkway and West 8th Street, which now are covered and coated with PIGEON FECES and homeless sleeping in the waiting areas using it as a toillet with no MTA workers or cops to be seen. Then to add insult to injury you eliminate our X29 Express Bus. Shame on you and the thiefs at the MTA.

    12 years ago

    Stop increasing our fares.
    Stop the unions.
    Stop redoing stations and increase service!!!
    Stop wasting our money!
    If people can’t get to work because it is too expensive to get there, the city’s finances and tax revenue will go down.
    Bad cycle. Start with the unions and we will be better off…

    Facts1
    Facts1
    12 years ago

    This is insane, under Bloomberg, the MTA has more than doubles its fares, while under Guliani, there were only two increases at a total of 35%.

    The worst part of it, is that service has become really bad. The trains have barely move, transit time has doubled as a result of Construction. In BP you cannot get a train to Manhattan 2 out out of every 4 weeks.

    Where are our representatives? Where? Nothing has changed, the police are still harassing us, the real estate taxes are double and water has more then tripled.

    Stop holding press conferences and get something done!

    ChachoMoe
    ChachoMoe
    12 years ago

    Stop paying these union clowns as if they are in a high professional field, the fact that this ‘business’ (:if you may call it so) is financed by tax-payers, is what allows these clowns to operate as no other legit business would ever even dream off! Had it been any private business, it would have long gone bankrupt, the way they operate!
    E.g there is one guy who cleans the trash in the morning and another in the afternoon and another at evening, all paid with every benefit and high salary, as if they are working in a full-time office job. No other business spends as lightly and carelessly as these union clowns do! I, myself, (or anyone out there) do not know ANY private business that operates in any such matter, and is still able to survive/compete!

    Solution:

    Privatize all and get rid of the Union!!!

    LEEAVE
    LEEAVE
    12 years ago

    Tell this idiot chairman,
    Each and every time he’s raising fairs, ridership goes down, n they take in even lesser revenue, so they come back again ask 4 more, its a non ending cycle and these clowns still can’t figuer it out!!!

    12 years ago

    this is the same MTA that is $1 billion dollars over budget so far on the Fulton Street transit hub. How does do you go a billion dollars over budget and its not even half way done. Has anyone seen it? They are using rusty metal support beams that they will paint over to look new, it leaks like a broken faucet all the way down to the train tracks and is being built by the same bozos that built the worst station ever constucted in the first place. has anyone taken the new trains on the “F” line the last 2 years. The MTA or whoever got bribed at the MTA bought the worst trains with the worst ride in the whole station. The conductors don’t know how to drive them and every station they make short stops the braking ystems will be shot in no time, they put handle bars between every 3 seats that just takes away seats without providing any meaningfull place to hold on, and the handle bars they put in the ceiling are made for people 6″3″ or taller because nobody else can reach them. I can’t decide which goverment agency is run worse the MTA, the post office who can’t even sell postage stamps in a vending machine, or the Dept. of Trans that paves NYC streets & HWYS with garbage

    Yisroel
    Yisroel
    12 years ago

    Several reasons why the MTA is inefficiant.
    I talked with two friends who work for the MTA they told me the following:
    1. The bosses have inflated salaries.
    2. The transit union is very strong and they are overpaid and have great benefits.
    3. The system is riddled with waste. Why do we need expensive tiled and marble floored subway stations etc.?
    4. There is no independent oversight.
    5. The MTA has admitted to having two sets of books one for the public and second is the hidden books that reveal the truth.
    6. The Mafia has control over many aspects of the MTA.
    7. Nepotism, phony overtime pay, too many workers who do nothing etc.
    8. Highly inflated overpayment to contractors.

    RebKlemson
    RebKlemson
    12 years ago

    the MTA and Port Authority need to be shut down. They are a money draining system that gets nothing done. so much money needs to be sucked up for pensions, benefits, health care, crazy overtime, top executive pay, construction not done properly, etc etc. how can they actually be profitable? any extra penny is already owed somewhere with interest. And the more they pass it on to us the more people get turned away. fix the problem. cut the nonsense, run it like a BUSINESS. If we can fail, why can’t you? give anyone a blank check and they will abuse it as well. here is legalized extortion