In the letter, the lawmakers wrote that service on the city’s subways and buses “is a basic economic necessity for New Yorkers.”

Reducing the price of MetroCards for riders struggling to make ends meet will help those residents get to work, school, medical appointments and other places easier, according to the councilmembers.

“We are confident, that where the council leads, the mayor will follow and join us in weaving a vital new thread into our social safety net,” the letter reads.

Rebecca Bailin, campaign manager for the Riders Alliance, a transit advocacy group pushing for Fair Fares, said she hoped the fact that a vast majority of city councilmembers support Fair Fares will put pressure on de Blasio to include the measure in his budget.

“It is up to Mayor de Blasio. But I think the fact that a super majority of the council supports it lends the proposal an incredible amount of legitimacy,” Bailin told the Brooklyn Eagle on Tuesday.

Bailin also noted that de Blasio could act unilaterally to make Fair Fares happen.

“There is very little the mayor can do on his own without getting approval from Albany. This is something he can do. He would be doing something to help low-income New Yorkers, something he talks about a lot,” she said.

The campaign for half-fare MetroCards, known as Fair Fares, was started in 2016 by the Riders Alliance and the nonprofit organization Community Service Society (CSS) following the release of a CSS study which found that 25 percent of low-income residents in New York City often cannot afford to pay transit fares. 

A one-way transit fare is $2.75.

The CSS report charged that the cost of transit threatens to shut low-income New Yorkers out of jobs that are located outside of the neighborhoods where they live.

Several Brooklyn councilmembers agreed.

“In New York City, one in four low-income residents cannot afford public transportation fares. Still, they need to use public transit to go to work, take their kids to the doctor and move around to get basic services. New Yorkers living in poverty are struggling enough to make ends meet. They deserve our support,” Councilmember Carlos Menchaca (D-Sunset Park-Red Hook) said in a statement.

Under Fair Fares, residents living at or below the poverty level ($24,339 for a family of four) would be eligible for half-priced MetroCards. The Riders Alliance estimated that it would save transit riders an average of $726 a year.

The program would be open to New Yorkers between the ages of 18 and 64. An estimated 800,000 riders would be eligible for reduced cost MetroCards.

The Fair Fares program would cost the city approximately $200 million, according to CSS.

“Half price bus and subway fares will be extremely helpful to low-income New Yorkers who are generally most affected by fare beat arrests. This funding will alleviate that issue to some extent,” said Councilmember Alicka Ampry-Samuel (D-Ocean Hill-Brownsville-Bedford-Stuyvesant).

Councilmember Mark Treyger (D-Coney Island-Gravesend-Bensonhurst) said the Fair Fares program is needed because the cost of a MetroCard is prohibitive for many of the city’s low-income residents.

“It’s bad enough that many New Yorkers routinely face public transit delays, maintenance issues, or limited service in certain parts of the city. We cannot let the price of a MetroCard come between New Yorkers’ ability to earn an income, get an education or receive medical treatment,” he said.

The push for the Fair Fares proposal has included petitions, rallies and letter writing campaigns organized by the Riders Alliance.

The mayor did include a plan to reduce the cost of MetroCards for an estimated 800,000 New York City financially-strapped residents in Fair Fix, a plan he released in August. But the program was coupled with another de Blasio proposal to impose a tax on millionaires to help pay for repairs to the transit system.

Freddi Goldstein, the mayor’s deputy press secretary, said the mayor supports the idea of giving low-income New Yorkers a helping hand to purchase MetroCards, but added that the city would require help paying for a program like Fair Fares.

“The mayor of course wants to provide relief to those in need, which is why he included Fair Fares in his Fair Fix plan. Given serious budgetary threats from Washington and Albany, this is not something the city can fund on its own,” Goldstein told the Eagle in an email.

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