City budget includes $106 million for Fair Fares

Program lets low-income residents buy half-price Metrocards

June 12, 2018 By Paula Katinas Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Metrocard machines in the 77th Street R train station in Bay Ridge. Low-income New Yorkers will begin buying half-price Metrocards in early 2019. Eagle file photo by Paula Katinas

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Transportation advocates won a major victory when Mayor Bill de Blasio and City Council Speaker Corey Johnson agreed to include a reduced fare MetroCard program in the new city budget.

The new budget agreement, announced on Monday, includes $106 million to fund Fair Fairs, a program that will allow New Yorkers living below the poverty line to buy MetroCards at half price.

The mayor and Johnson joined transportation advocates at a celebration of the Fair Fares program at the Fulton Street subway station on Tuesday.

Transportation advocacy groups like the Riders Alliance and the Straphangers Campaign and non-profit organizations such as the Community Services Society (CSS) have been pushing for the city to adopt Fair Fares for several years. Advocates launched petition drives, organized letter-writing campaigns and held rallies to try to convince city officials to adopt Fair Fares.

The effort got a big boost earlier this year when Johnson and dozens of City Council members announced their support for it.

With its place in the city budget secure, the Fair Fares program is officially scheduled to begin in 2019. An estimated 800,000 New Yorkers would be eligible to take part.

The de Blasio administration is currently working on establishing eligibility requirements, according to the mayor’s office.

The program will be analyzed by city numbers crunchers during its first year of existence to make sure that funding levels are adequate, officials said.

“With our colleagues in the City Council, we have come to a historic agreement to reduce the cost of MetroCards for hardworking New Yorkers struggling to afford their city, reaffirming our commitment to making New York City fair,” de Blasio said in a statement.

It took a long time to get Fair Fares into the city budget, according to City Councilmember Justin Brannan (D-Bay Ridge-Dyker Heights-Bensonhurst).

“This was years in the making thanks to the many advocates who never gave up and pushed it to the forefront. This is a really big win for nearly 1 million New Yorkers who are living at or below the poverty line. In addition, Fair Fares will make 12,000 veterans enrolled in New York City Colleges eligible for the discount MetroCards. The bottom line is no one should have to choose between a meal and a MetroCard. No one should have to sweat missing a job interview because they can’t afford a swipe,” Brannan told the Brooklyn Eagle.

City Councilmember Mark Treyger (D-Coney Island-Gravesend-Bensonhurst) called the adoption of Fair faires “a major budget victory that ensures the price of public transit does not stand between New Yorkers and access to an education or a paycheck.”

The measure also had the strong support of Public Advocate Letitia James.

“Today is proof that government can work for the needs of its people. Fair fares will directly help low-income working families,” James said after the budget agreement was announced.

The Fair Fares proposal was developed following a study conducted by CSS in 2015 that concluded that paying the $2.75 fare on the subway or bus is something many of New York’s working poor cannot afford.

The transit fare also stymies a resident’s income, according to the CSS study, which found that inability to afford a Metrocard forces a worker to stay in his or her own neighborhood so that the job is within walking distance rather than seek a higher paying job that would require travel.

“In New York, geographic mobility is economic mobility too,” Riders Alliance Executive Director John Raskin said at a recent rally for Fair Fares.

David R. Jones, president and CEO of the CSS, said the Fair Fares program will save participants an average of $726 a year on the cost of a MetroCard.