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A Few Clouds Fare hike not so fair? Train ticket prices will increase by 4.3 percent
Baldwin residents who commute via the Long Island Rail Road blasted the planned 4.3 percent fare hike in their weekly and monthly tickets that the MTA is expecting to implement on or around Aug. 20.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the LIRR’s parent company, recently voted unanimously to raise the base fare prices for LIRR train trips for the first time in four years. A one-way ticket from Long Beach to Manhattan, for example, will increase from $14 to $14.50 during peak hours, and from $10.25 to $10.75 during off-peak hours.
The fare hike will impact Baldwin commuters who frequently take the LIRR, and some straphangers said they believe that the quality of the train service does not warrant the new ticket price increase.
“I don’t think the quality of service and the frequency of the trains with the new schedule justify a 4.3 percent increase,” said Sheree Nicole, a Baldwin resident who commutes to the city four days a week. “Driving to the city is not an option for me, so I really don’t have a choice but to pay the increase unfortunately.”
Nicole purchases a monthly ticket of $227, so any fare hike will cause her financial stress, she said. She added that she is already experiencing headaches from the new scheduling that was implemented after Grand Central Station opened. Although she said she knew this price hike would happen sooner rather than later, she is still unhappy with the added burden.
“I would love to see more morning trains to Penn Station, as more people go back to work,” Nicole said when asked what would have to happen to even warrant a 4.3 percent boost in ticket prices. “They have to pay attention to their ridership.”
Nicole explained that the new fare prices wouldn’t be a big deal if she continued to commute two times a week, but now that she commutes twice that amount, it’s a major imposition. She said she believes that the new prices are unfair and “a bit much.”
While the agency customarily raises fares every two years, MTA officials held off on an anticipated round of fare increases in 2021 for fear it would prevent commuters from using mass transit at a time when winning them back was key. The MTA also had billions of dollars in federal relief from the coronavirus pandemic it could tap into.
The situation came to a head earlier this year when the MTA said it faced a projected budget gap of $2.5 billion by 2025.
The agency has since managed to stave off financial disaster and avoid making drastic service cuts after Gov. Kathy Hochul and lawmakers promised to pump millions of dollars in added funding.
“We have to face the harsh reality of MTA’s fiscal cliff — a problem that was created by almost the complete cessation of ridership during the pandemic, except for emergency workers, first responders and health care workers,” Hochul said in her 2024 executive budget address.
Critics and observers, however, argue that the MTA’s budgetary problems reach back decades, swimming in fiscal troubles and structurally shabby budget practices resulting in expenses outpacing revenue.
The current fare bump is part of the roughly $1.3 billion bailout deal struck between the transit giant and Albany, according to Janno Lieber, MTA chair and chief executive.
On balance with the LIRR dropping fare prices by 10 percent last year, “the fares are still (comparatively) lower than they used to be, even though everything else in life has gone up,” Lieber said.
Additional reporting by Juan Lasso
