NYC Subway Fare over last 120 years adjusted for inflationDie-Nacht t1_jcmoike wrote
Reply to comment by ChrisFromLongIsland in NYC Subway Fare over last 120 years adjusted for inflation by dust1990
The fares should NOT cover the total cost of the system. No transit system works like that.
The simple fact is that transportation has to be subsidized, it can't ever be "profitable". And that's all transportation, even private car usage is heavily subsidized.
One of the big reasons public transit sucks in this country is that we keep demanding that it be profitable, all while not demanding the same from other forms of transport (aka, the car industry).
andruuNewgen t1_jcn89y4 wrote
And fares is an oversimplified way to look at the value of transit. The subway increases economic activity where ever it runs, which increases tax revenues and land values in general and its only fair some of that funnels back into the transit system.
iamnotimportant t1_jcnjxif wrote
That's how a lot of other cities run it, the transit system owns the land near their stations, that land is obviously more valuable cause there's transit there, they directly benefit as a result.
EmoRedneck t1_jd65sc3 wrote
What cities?
iamnotimportant t1_jd67x2h wrote
Tokyo, hong kong ther'es probably others. I forget one of them also has a metro card that doubles as a pay card for everything.
greenlambda t1_jcnxk2j wrote
This is not true. Both the London Underground and the Tokyo metro system have >100% Farebox recovery ratio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farebox_recovery_ratio There are reasonable discussions to be had about what the “ideal” ratio should be, but self funded is sometimes possible.
gammison t1_jco5zff wrote
For London that's mainly because of the way fares work and the reduced number of stations and hours even though there's slightly more track. The system is divided up into zones encircling central London and depending on between which zones you are traveling and whether you are traveling at a peak hour, the fare goes up.
It would be like if within the bottom half of Manhattan, and within each borough the fare was 2.75 but then if you crossed between them you'd get charged an extra two dollars. There are also daily and weekly caps that depend on zones and peak times. It's a pretty complicated fare system.
The weekly cap for the largest zone travel is like 90 dollars, way more than the 33 dollar cap the MTA has.
The buses in London also work differently and some are much cheaper than the London Underground (and MTA) and have daily caps of like 5 dollars while others are more expensive.
Buses in London are also subsidized, unlike the trains. Makes sense considering there are over 700 lines and like 20 thousand bus stops in London, double that of the MTA.
The Tokyo metro also has ticket price tiers that depend on distance traveled (they still use paper tickets where you get a source and destination station iirc). These actually cap out at like $2.50 USD. Again though, beyond the cost of operation being cheaper in Japan, there are reduced hours and fewer stations and daily ridership is actually higher than the NYC subway.
All this is to say, these self funded systems depend on pretty different conditions from the MTA. The MTA to self fund like this would have to do a combination of hour reductions and tiered distance and congestion pricing.
It would be very expensive just to to make the logistical changes to how swipes work for that, but imo is also just not socially worth it. I'd rather have a progressive percentage tax on all city residents and businesses (to hit the commuters out of city) and make the whole system free than do some chicanery of "well we'll target 50 percent self funded so raise fares x amount, spend this much to do cross-borough pricing, and reduce hours by y".
We should also transition the MTA to being fully state owned, not the current public benefit corporation model.
chetlin t1_jco80bz wrote
They charge £6.70 minimum too if you pay with cash, which I did the first time I took a train there in 2019 :( from King's Cross to Old Street, just a couple stops, equivalent to $8.16.
gammison t1_jcob4tg wrote
Yeah they do that on purpose to force people to use cards and phones.
woodcider t1_jco42b5 wrote
I’m guessing the fact that they both have zoned fares helps. A flat rate at the same ridership level will bring in less revenue.
WikiSummarizerBot t1_jcnxlkf wrote
>The farebox recovery ratio (also called fare recovery ratio, fare recovery rate or other terms) of a passenger transportation system is the fraction of operating expenses which are met by the fares paid by passengers. It is computed by dividing the system's total fare revenue by its total operating expenses.
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damnatio_memoriae t1_jcnsya4 wrote
1000%. the subway is a service that makes the city a desirable place to live, work, and do business. it enables people to move freely and cheaply throughout the city throughout the day and night, visitors and citizens alike. the goal is not to make a direct profit off of these people for the city. the goal is to use public funds to benefit the public -- to spend tax dollars to improve the lives and livelihood of the citizenry and visitors to the city.
YutaniCasper t1_jco633h wrote
Japanese trains are a mix of a public/private and they’re stellar
RyzinEnagy t1_jcpxznk wrote
True on a macro level.
NYC had a specific set of circumstances. The nickel fare was kept way too long, and the city's money went to Moses' highways instead of system maintenance. The city went broke in the 70s and was forced to cede control of the subways to the state. Today we're playing catch-up for maintenance that should have been done 50-100 years ago, and the subway is still under state control.
Powerful-Attorney-26 t1_jcruhdq wrote
The subways were taken over by the state in the 1960s.
dlerach t1_jctg8ge wrote
Unification of the subway system happened in 1940.
[deleted] t1_jcmsm4z wrote
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k1lk1 t1_jcomur5 wrote
As pointed out below, you're simply wrong on the point that farebox recovery can't ever fund the system.
Upleftright_syndrome t1_jd3zyy0 wrote
It can't ever fund the system, though. We'd have to completely change the system to a new system. It'd be a completely different system.
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