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MTA plans smaller 2015, 2017 fare hikes, which qualifies as good news technically

crowded subway
To celebrate, everyone in New York got on the subway at once. via Flickr user Ben Woosley

The bi-annual MTA fare hike is just becoming a part of every New Yorker’s life at this point, like your landlord not turning the heat on until January and that one roommate who won’t put some goddamn pants on. But in a brilliant bit of marketing savvy, the MTA forecasted doom-laden fare hikes of 7.5% in 2015 and 2017, only to say in a recent meeting that the fare hikes would only be 4%. Thanks, guys!

Runnin’ Scared reports that at an MTA board meeting on Wednesday, board members casually mentioned that fare hikes would top out at 4% in 2015 and 2017. We’re pretty sure this tactic of “awful promise then less awful action that looks so much better” is right out of the PUA playbook, but fortunately, we’ve never readĀ The Mystery Method. Anyway, this means that the base fare for a MetroCard will be $2.60 in 2015 and $2.70 in 2017 if our back of the envelope math is correct.

According the Runnin’ Scared, the smaller fare hike will come not from the MTA’s sudden two billion dollar surplus, but from overhead reduction and at the expense of any wage increase for workers over those four years. Unlike the PUA thing, we’re very sure that turning workers against each other isĀ something out of the oligarch’s playbook.

One Response to

  1. This is inaccurate. It’s not coming “at the expense of any wage increase for workers over those four years”. Wages WILL go up, but the MTA will also be extracting productivity increases from those workers to achieve a “net zero” wage increase. Basically, they’re looking to slowly improve outdated union work rules.

    Please, please do a tiny bit of research before misinforming people more than you already have when you write about the MTA.

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