Commuters of the Long Island Rail Road hit with fare hike

“What choice do we really have? said a Long Island Rail Road Hewlett station commuter, who declined to provide his name. “It’s the cost of living here.”

He then ran to catch his 8:20 a.m. train to Penn Station. A daily routine that will now cost him and fellow commuters more money as the Metropolitan Transportation Authority board approved its first fare hike in four years on July 19.

“These increases had been introduced on May 22, 2023,” the MTA wrote in a news release. “Between June 22, 2023, and June 26, 2023, the MTA Board held four hybrid public hearings to receive public comments on the proposed fare changes. The MTA further invited and received written and video statements from members of the public commenting on the proposals.”

Fare revenue will increase by roughly 4.3 percent on or around Aug. 20.

The price increase translates to a few extra cents for each LIRR ticket. A one-way ticket from Hewlett to Manhattan, for example, will cost an additional 50 cents, from $14 to $14.50 during peak commuting times, and will rise from $10.25 to $10.75 during non-peak hours.

A round of fare increases was expected in 2021 as the agency raises prices every two years, but MTA officials held off because of fear of losing commuters but the goal of winning them back played a role.

Earlier this year, the MTA faced a projected budget gap of $2.5 billion by 2025 and the agency has since managed to stave off financial ruin and avoid drastic service cuts after Gov. Kathy Hochul promised millions of dollars in funding in her 2024 executive budget address.

“We have to face the harsh reality of MTA’s fiscal cliff,” Hochul noted in her budget address. “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.”

Hewlett’s Elizabeth Joseph-Lau commutes to Penn Station twice a week and said money should go into upgrades on the LIRR train cars.

“They should work on making all the trains the new ones,” she said.

Joseph-Lau referred to the subway cars in the city as the MTA has rolled out more modern subway trains. The LIRR has been using the M9 cars, which replaced the M3/M3A, built during the 1980s. The M9 entered service in 2009.

Critics and observers, however, argue that the MTA’s budgetary problems reach back decades of fiscal troubles and structurally shabby budget practices resulting in expenses outpacing revenue.

The current fare bump, which will also see an increase for tolls on MTA bridges, is part of the roughly $1.3 billion bailout deal struck between the transit giant and Albany, said MTA chair and chief executive Janno Lieber.

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