Subway Fare Hikes Start Today

Straphangers want more bang for their bucks

Updated 5:19 AM EST, Sun, Jun 28, 2009

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Brace yourselves, straphangers. You'll all be digging a little deeper in your pockets starting today. City bus and subway fares are going up.

The Metropolitan Transit Authority will have a grace period for previously purchased Metrocards but, otherwise, a seven-day unlimited Metrocard will cost $27 and the price of a 30-day Metrocard rises to $89.

Beginning at 12:01 a.m. Sunday, the cost of a single ride increases from $2 to $2.25. It's the fifteenth time subway fares have been jacked up since 1948. And cash-strapped straphangers are saying the most recent hikes couldn't have come at a worse time.

"An increase in fare without an increase in service is wrong," cried Giedrimas Jeglinskas, a B-school student with a young child told The New York Post. "The trains are still dirty. We have no new benefit, but we still have an increase. It's a sign of the times."

Granted, the hike is far less than the 23 percent increase proposed in the MTA's doomsday budget, which was prevented by the state bailout. Still, for those who have lost their jobs, fear losing them and already struggle to pay the bills, the hike still hurts.

"It's horrible they're doing this in a time of recession, when people are struggling," Dothan Negrin, a 22-year-old musician residing in SoHo, told the Post. Negrin opted to buy a $120 bike on Craigslist to save money long-term and avoid the subway fare hikes.

Express bus fares also are going up. Bridge tolls will also cost about half a buck more each way at some point. The plan, all part of a massive effort to bail the MTA out of a half-a-billion-dollar-deficit and fund agency projects, also includes a 50-cent surcharge on taxi rides and a bunch of new taxes that will amount to $2.3 billion for the MTA.