Mayor Mamdani’s glib campaign goal of abolishing the fares on buses for everyone makes a lot less sense than cutting bus and subway fares for the New Yorkers who actually need it most. That’s what the Citizens Budget Commission found in a report published this week and bolstered by testimony before the City Council.
Boosting the city’s Fair Fares program of half-price transit rides for lower-income New Yorkers will help more who can use the assistance.
Many people who qualify for Fair Fares either don’t know about the program, know about it but have found it too cumbersome to sign up, or use it but still feel like transit is unaffordable. The result is that the city not only doesn’t get their half-priced fares, but often no fares at all as these folks skip out on paying, contributing to the roughly $1 billion in fare revenue the MTA is losing annually.
Council Speaker Julie Menin is on the right path to pumping up Fair Fares by increasing the income threshold to participate, making enrollment automatic and even eliminating the fare entirely for some folks.
The CBC recommends raising the cutoff from 150% to 250% of the federal poverty level, which is still modest. Another proposal put forward by some members of the Council would raise the cutoff to 300% and then make transit free altogether for those who qualified. Getting to the ideal balance will take some serious thought and discussion.
In either case, automatic enrollment at the very least should be a no-brainer. Bureaucratic red tape should not be a stumbling block to keep people from using benefits they’re otherwise entitled to. If someone meets the criteria for enrollment, they should receive the subsidy, period.
We all should be proud to live in a city in which the transit system is robust enough that a majority of households don’t need or even have a car. But that means that we have to be extra thoughtful about access to this vital lifeblood, and ensure to the best of our ability that swaths of our fellow New Yorkers aren’t left out.
Free buses as the mayor wants, does nothing for the large majority of New Yorkers who ride the trains. And why should well-to-do passengers be getting a free ride?
An expansion of Fair Fares, including one that would make rides free for recipients, would certainly carry a price tag, but we can think about it more as an investment; every subsidy made for New Yorkers to more freely access our subways and buses means more economic activity, people with more money in their pockets to spend at small businesses, more jobs and schooling that are feasible.
Anyway, in the grand scheme of NYC’s budget, we’re not necessarily looking at budget busters; the CBC estimated its expansion would cost just $146 million per year. The Council proposal would be significantly more, but would still fall well under the projected $900 million cost for Mamdani’s full free bus program.
We understand that this was a mayoral campaign plank, but it’s hard to deny that the Fair Fares expansion would do more for the city’s struggling population — who need subways more than buses — and cost less. The mayor should look at this as a solid win, with Council support already baked in.