Thursday, October 1, 2026
For Long Islanders, commuting to Manhattan has become a financial no-win situation. No matter how you slice it, whether you’re taking a train or driving in, you’re paying more than ever to get there. Now, just months after effectively forcing us off the road with the congestion pricing scheme, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is proposing to raise our rail fares again.
Coincidence? Of course not. It is coerced consumption, or what honest people simply call a shakedown.
The MTA’s latest money grab will increase the cost of riding the Long Island Rail Road yet again, with the price of weekly and monthly tickets rising by 4.5 percent and other ticket types, like one-way fares, jumping by as much as 8 percent. Depending on where you live, a monthly pass is inching toward $500! And that’s before you factor in subway transfers. By comparison, I checked the travel site Kayak and found a round-trip fare from JFK to Madrid for just $224. You could go to Europe twice and still pay less than an LIRR monthly pass.
On top of astronomical prices, the MTA is eliminating round-trip rides and replacing them with a rigid “day pass” that expires at 4 a.m. the next morning. Even worse, all mobile tickets will now auto-activate at the time of purchase and expire in just four hours, whether your train is delayed, your meeting runs long or your plans simply change. For many riders, it’s a trap that forces you pay full price — twice — for the same trip. The only explanation for this is the MTA’s apparent hope that commuters won’t use the ticket in time and be forced to pay again — the worst kind of money-grab.
We were told the MTA was supposed to get better with congestion pricing. That $9 fee to drive into Manhattan was sold as an “investment in public transit,” which raises the question: Why are we being asked to pay even more now? By its own estimate, the MTA loses $700 million annually in fare evasion, the overwhelming majority on buses and subways, not on commuter rails. Before asking fare-paying LIRR riders to cover the gap again, the MTA might try actually collecting those fares first.
What makes these hikes harder to stomach is the current state of service. We pack ourselves into overcrowded trains, sweat in cars with broken air conditioning, and then scramble during sudden service disruptions with little to no communication.
And the stations are worse. In fact, Nassau County Comptroller Elaine Phillips documented that county taxpayers pay the MTA $36.5 million annually to maintain LIRR stations. That’s $100,000 per day, yet many stations are routinely found filthy and in major disrepair, with ceilings and walls crumbling.
Think driving is the better option? Think again. Between the congestion pricing fee, skyrocketing tolls and the cost of parking, driving into the city has become a bank-breaker. We were told that congestion pricing would increase ridership and raise millions of dollars for system upgrades that would make public transit more efficient and reliable. Instead we’re paying congestion pricing and getting slapped with fare hikes, all while enduring the same crumbling infrastructure and service breakdowns.
The message from New York state and the MTA couldn’t be clearer: No matter how you commute, you’re going to pay more for less.
Once again, Long Islanders are being used as a blank check to solve budget shortfalls. We’re told to do our part, but the return on our investment is delays, discomfort and dwindling options. The MTA must accept accountability. Until the agency acknowledges the need to fix its wasteful spending, address fare evasion in a meaningful way and deliver service improvements, asking riders to pay more isn’t just unfair; it’s a breach of trust.
Public hearings on these fare increases are coming this fall. Long Islanders should speak out and remind decision-makers that we’re not just numbers on a balance sheet. We are taxpayers who happen to pay more than most Americans, and this proposal is our breaking point.
If you’d like to be kept up to date on the dates and times of these hearings, please sign up for my email at martins.nysenate.gov.
Jack Martins represents the 7th State Senate District.
