Fifty-Five. The magic number. The most important number you need to know about the transit system.

It’s called the Farebox Recovery Ratio.

Simply put, if you take the total revenues any transportation system receives over a given period of time, and figure out that part of the total contributed by fares and tolls as a percentage, that number is the Farebox Recovery Ratio. The average FRR for a major American city’s transit system is 37%, about three-eighths of all revenues. New York’s FRR is 55%, 50 percent more than average, and the highest ratio in the United States.

Why do we pay more? Simple. The subways are run by a corporation, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, that is more interested in shielding whoever happens to be governor at any time than in serving the needs of the people of New York. It seems that many predecessors of Gov. Elliot Spitzer, particularly George Pataki, wanted to contribute as little as possible in state funds to the system — and the MTA board members were much too gentlemanly to insist that the state pay its fair share. They therefore did the only thing they could think of doing to pay the bills: borrow more and more and more money, through bonds. (Being an “authority,” rather than a state agency, makes it easier to do this.)

Now the MTA is drowning in two decades’ worth of debt… and most of the money that goes into our Metrocards comes out the other end as debt service. If we, the transit riders of this city, allow the fare hike to go through, this will maintain (and even perhaps increase) the insanely high Farebox Recovery Ratio with which the ridership is now burdened. In other words, we will continue to pay more than our fair share because other major stakeholders in the system – corporations, state taxpayers — will still pay less.

That is why the Fight the Hike campaign is advocating that the fares be rolled back, so that Gov. Spitzer will be forced, in order to keep the system solvent, to come out from behind the protective shield that the MTA has placed around him and accede to our demand that the state government and New York State-based corporations bear this fiscal burden equally with the long-suffering riders of the buses and subways, and commuter railroads, of New York.

At the end of this message is a link to the interview I gave today on “Wakeup Call” broadcast at 7:50 am on WBAI-FM in New York. It goes into quite a bit of detail on the MTA’s proposed transit fare hike and why it’s totally unnecessary. Please note the following:

• The interview link is only valid today, Thursday, because from tomorrow on, the show will be archived (I will provide that archive link in a future post to this blog);
• The correct link is the second of three links at the bottom of the linked page, because I appeared during the second hour of the (three-hour) morning program;
• My interview begins about 49 minutes into the hour.
• Please note that in the interview, I gave an incorrect time for the demonstration on Wed., December 19th: it is actually occurring from 8:00 am to 10:00 am at 347 Madison Avenue (near 44th St.) in Manhattan.

Your comments would be gratefully appreciated.

http://www.wakeupcallradio.org/index.php?option=com_newsfeeds&task=view&feedid=11&Itemid=55

The Transit System Belongs to US!

Gov. Spitzer, with MTA officials at his side, recently announced that the base fare for the city’s transit riders would not be raised until at least 2009.

Problem solved, right? WRONG!

According to Spitzer and the MTA, only transit riders who purchase their rides at the base rate will not see their fares go up in early 2008. But such riders comprise only 15% of total ridership. The others purchase discounted cards:

• Pay-per-ride cards may reduce the six-rides-for-five discount;

• Unlimited weekly cards, now $24, may go up by $2, or $8 a month;

• Unlimited monthly cards, now $76, may be raised by as much as $5;

• Unlimited monthly cards, now $76, may be raised by as much as $5.

The people least able to afford it ¾ the working people of New York ¾ shoulder more than half the operating costs of a hideously mismanaged system: 55% of total revenues, as opposed to 29% in Boston. And now they’re planning partial fare hikes every two years!

Here is what The Green Party believes:

• The base fare should go down to $1.75;

• All bonus cards and LIRR fares should be lowered proportionately;

• A stock transfer tax and congestion pricing should be sources of revenue;

• The MTA’s books must be audited and subjected to full scrutiny;

• The MTA itself should be an elected board accountable to the people!

We will protest the MTA board’s fare hike meeting on Wednesday, December 19^th, 347 Madison Ave. (44^th Street) at 8:00 am.

The Green Party Says “No” to the Hike!

The following is a message published in the November 9, 2007, edition of the Metro (New York) free newspaper by Matthew Borenstein of the Fight the Hike Committee:

The latest MTA effort to bamboozle the riding public into a fare hike is now meeting mounting opposition. The people are sick and tired of being held hostage by the perpetual cries of the looming debt crisis. The Green Party believes the public is ready to stand up for its rights. People are realizing that: 1) the huge NYC transit system — the largest in the country — is public property. We all own it — not the MTA board, not the mayor, not the governor. It is our property and the public has the inherent right to directly elect its managing board, and also remove the entire unelected, unrepresentative board; 2) New York City — the financial capital of the world — is the home of billion and multi-billion-dollar corporations, which can only stay in business because of the public transit system. Yet, they don’t pay a dime for this essential service! 3) In Chicago, public transit riders pay 30 percent of operating costs; in New York, we pay 60 percent. So when the public asserts its rightful control over it’s own property, those giant corporations will finally be paying their fair (fare) share.

Matthew Borenstein 

We’re here to fight the New York City transit fare hike. Because of the MTA and Governor Spitzer, the transit fare will go up early next year (and partial hikes every two years after that) unless we stop it. Stay tuned to this page to find out how you can help stop the hike.