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I dont see any problem with subsiziding MTA fares by collecting funds through other taxes. The more people use the system the better. Based on my limited resear

I dont see any problem with subsiziding MTA fares by collecting funds through other taxes. The more people use the system the better. Based on my limited research on this topic, the root cause of the problem is the labor cost and inefficiency of MTA workers. I think everything else is noise. Here is great quote from NYT article on this subject: “Nobody knew what those people were doing, if they were doing anything,” said Michael Horodniceanu, who was then the head of construction at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which runs transit in New York. The workers were laid off, Mr. Horodniceanu said, but no one figured out how long they had been employed. “All we knew is they were each being paid about $1,000 every day.” https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-construction-costs.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-...

lonelappde 7y ago
MTA operates near capacity during peak time. It doesn't need more riders then. But NYC lacks peak pricing.
- jayd16 7y ago
  Peak pricing is an interesting thought that hadn't occurred to me. Seems like a good way to increase rates in a somewhat progressive way. Presumably rush hour commuters could afford more than others.
  - briandear 7y ago
    Peak pricing is also a market approach that embraces supply and demand. It’s a good idea.
    - kingkawn 7y ago
      Except it will wildly harm the poor who rely on the subway
    - colechristensen 7y ago
      Market approaches work when demand is elastic. It's pretty easy to deduce that there is an anticorrelation between ability to adjust riding schedules and ability to pay increased fees.
      - dantheman 7y ago
        Why, shifts can change - especially when it works out for everyone.
        colechristensen 7y ago
        Restaurants aren't going to change their hours, hospitals aren't going to change their shifts, what motivation does an employer have to make changes? It doesn't cost employers anything so they are unlikely to care and jobs aren't exactly elastic goods either.
        bluGill 7y ago
        Restaurants don't need to change their hours - they need their employees in before the rush hour and working during it because that is when people are going to be there. You 7:45 coffee on the way to work was made by someone who got in at 6:00 am to setup the coffee pot. Hospitals aren't going to change their shifts (unless staff demands it - they might), but a large number of people going in at rush hour are not doing shift work where they need to be in at a particular time. I can adjust my schedule a lot if I want, fares (and traffic) can be motivation to doso.
  - nikofeyn 7y ago
    > Seems like a good way to increase rates in a somewhat progressive way. how is it progressive, exactly? seems like it’s just another tax on the poor who have to get to jobs at exact times.
    - jmknoll 7y ago
      Because professionals working full-time jobs and commuting at rush hour can typically afford the higher fare, while people working part-time/odd jobs/commuting to interviews/not working at all probably aren't the ones taking the rush hour trains. Sure, there are some working poor who need to be in the office 9-5, but the majority of people working full time regular hours aren't poor. And for people who can't afford the increase, you just introduce an exception (if you make under $40,000 per year you don't pay the increased fare, or something like that)
      - namdnay 7y ago
        You realise there’s a lot of people between wealthy professionals and part-time/odd job workers right? A secretary has to be on time, so does a cashier. I’m not sure what good peak pricing would do, apart from push them to less carbon-efficient forms of transport?
        s1artibartfast 7y ago
        As long as the lines are still running at max capacity, you are still taking the same number of vehicles off the road. If you extend the period of max-capacity, you taking more cars off the road. The question is if the benefit of more revenue and environmental savings warrants making the secretaries an cashiers adapt to less efficient schedules (eg come in earlier, stay later)
        SmellyGeekBoy 7y ago
        It's sad that making lower earners' lives even more difficult would even be a consideration in the first place. Increasing capacity would also result in taking more vehicles off the road.
- earthboundkid 7y ago
  MTA doesn’t even have variable pricing for distance. It’s a pretty poorly designed system qua system. It has good coverage. Everything else is substandard internationally.
  - L_Rahman 7y ago
    Peak and especially distance based pricing are fundamentally regressive and unjust tax schemes that penalize the poor. Subway fares are already regressive in that they represent a larger share of income in poorer people than in the rich, making it distance based so that people who can't afford to live in the core are charged more makes the problem 10x worse.
    - iamthirsty 7y ago
      Just because you may have a larger income than others doesn't mean you should pay more money to equal a lower income person's cost percentage of income wise, that's unjust in itself.
      - miglmj 7y ago
        It doesn't mean you shouldn't, either. There's nuance to every situation, particularly when we're discussing the means by which some people quite literally survive, vs. luxury or leisure goods and services.
    - CapricornNoble 7y ago
      Distance pricing seems to work just fine here in Japan, although I did't dig into the data on public transit, just based on my personal experience. Fares in Osaka or Tokyo are ~$2 per 3-4 stations from your departure point. Riding to Kyoto from downtown Osaka (40km) is ~$8 and 8 stops across two lines. The prices overall are low (IMO), and Japan has lower wage inequality than the US (IIRC).
    - zaroth 7y ago
      It’s not an unjust or regressive tax scheme to charge more for greater service. This is incorrectly repurposing the language of taxation to the reality of transit fares. It is certainly correct that having fixed fares across time and distance is a government subsidy which arguably may even effectively target poor riders. The lack of a subsidy is fundamentally not the same as a tax. But when a subsidy distorts the market to the point where it causes inefficiencies in the market, those inefficiencies can undermine the value or effectiveness of the subsidy, sometimes altogether. I.e. lack of peek pricing causing massive ridership spikes at specific hours overloading the system and making it break down. A theoretically better system might be one with a fixed monthly fare credit for low income riders, while also having peek pricing. This shifts demand to keep the system running more smoothly while also making transit more affordable for lower income riders. But then, why not ask the question, if we’re giving money to low income riders, why give rebates only to low income people who ride the train? Why have a low income subsidy specifically for subway ridership versus any of a dozen other things people fundamentally need. Why micromanage to that level?
- objektif 7y ago
  Emm how about increasing the capacity? For gods sake why would do such a thing like “peak procing” to a public transportation system :). Not everything is a optimization honework assignment. This is real life some unfortunate people who have less income than you have go to places too. Number of people during peak hours is enough deterrent itself. You dont need to introduce extra cost. Shall we introduce peak pricing to fire trucks as well?
- namdnay 7y ago
  Then the best thing to do is increase that capacity! Every rider on the subway is a bit less pollution in the city air
maxlybbert 7y ago
Is it possible that getting rid of the subsidies might improve worker efficiency?
- atoav 7y ago
  If only there was a way to decide on what local governments should do based on certain topics. In most cities where public transport is in the hands of the local government, the direction things should take is decided by voting and governments that fuck up public transport, are voted out. This is how it works on a city level in many european cities at least.
programmertote 7y ago
I grew up in a third world country in SE Asia and moved to the US for college. One thing that astounds me about public workers in US is that they are super rude and entitled, while seemingly having poor work ethics. I take MTA subway every week day and at least once a weekend. On weekends, you'll see workers repairing or doing maintenance on tracks because .... Hurricane Sandy (circa 2012) apparently destroyed the infrastructure. I mean I moved to NYC in 2016 and that maintenance has been going on every weekend since then (probably it started even before 2016). Some of the trains will not run or will skip over some local stops and it really inconveniences millions of commuters every weekend. The trains are supposed to slowly move around the areas worker are 'in action' (I read somewhere that it's because a few worker died by being hit by moving train, so they now require trains to move very slowly while blaring horns to warn workers ahead; I still felt that's unnecessary unless there's a clear distinction between which line workers operate on and as long as these workers are smart enough to not encroach on the active lines. Anyway, enough about that). While the trains move slowly, I see a lot of workers simply just sitting around or doing nothing. The same is true on the 9th ave x 50+th street area where there's active water sanitation department's work going on. I walk along 9th ave every weekday morning and there are a lot of idle 'workers' who are probably supervising. I'd say only about half of them are doing useful work while others sit/stand around and chat. No wonder these public projects take years to finish and have budget overrun. No wonder the US can't compete with other countries (ahem, like China and anywhere in Asia) where workers have better work ethics. The US blue collar workers like to complain about their diminishing salaries and industries, but they won't be able to compete for long while their counterparts in other developing regions are working harder.
- rayiner 7y ago
  Our German au pair was astounded that every project that requires shutting down a lane on a road has two guys waving people through the remaining lane. Apparently in Germany they just use portable traffic signals.
  - bpicolo 7y ago
    I live in the US and am still astounded by this. I've seen cases where we have a portable traffic signal that's also manned by two guys.
L_Rahman 7y ago
I don't understand why this comment was voted into the negative, but I suspect that it has something to do with the world view of the people who oppose taxes on a fundamental level. To those of you, I ask - why? New York's flat non-distance based fare is one of the great democratic institutions of the city. Whether you live in Flushing, Rego Park or Gramercy; whether you ride one stop or make four transfers - you pay the same fare. The only way this can work is if those of us with more wealth take care of those of us with less. What seems wrong about this?
- SamReidHughes 7y ago
  It encourages people to live in inefficient places and mooch off everybody else.
  - ako 7y ago
    You want people to live in inefficient places, it's not doable for everybody to live in the nearest location. All that does is skyrocket housing prices, and drive out people with lower paid jobs.
    - SamReidHughes 7y ago
      That's the idea. You drive people with low paid jobs out of living in places they can't afford without mooching off of their neighbors. They move closer, get a smaller apartment, people build more densely, or they get a job elsewhere, or they eat the true cost of travel, less want to do it, wages increase somewhat. I used to travel, in Philadelphia, from a Main Line-adjacent community, on a bus to 69th Street Station, and then on the Market-Frankford Line, and then switched to the Broad Street line, all the way up to Temple U. for a $10/hr job, on a $1.30 token plus a $.60 transfer, each way. That's outrageous. I was mooching off the system, and my employer was mooching off the system as well. If they made me pay higher fares, well, I could afford it. What's an extra $3.80 when you're making $10/hr? At that wage, it was a small fraction of the time spent commuting.
  - zanny 7y ago
    Encouraging people to live attached to a subway and then incentivizing their usage of it, regardless of distance in almost any circumstance, is a huge transit efficiency boon for the economy. If you price people out of the trains so they start driving cars again or even taking busses you are suddenly losing a huge amount of volumetric efficiency in your transit system. Optimal cities can get almost everyone anywhere either walking, biking, or riding train all the time. Any requirement for road bound vehicles is an infrastructure failure of city planning. There are exceptional circumstances (moving heavy items that can't be carried) but they should be just that - exceptional, and rare.

lonelappde 7y ago

MTA operates near capacity during peak time. It doesn't need more riders then. But NYC lacks peak pricing.

jayd16 7y ago
Peak pricing is an interesting thought that hadn't occurred to me. Seems like a good way to increase rates in a somewhat progressive way. Presumably rush hour commuters could afford more than others.
- briandear 7y ago
  Peak pricing is also a market approach that embraces supply and demand. It’s a good idea.
  - kingkawn 7y ago
    Except it will wildly harm the poor who rely on the subway
  - colechristensen 7y ago
    Market approaches work when demand is elastic. It's pretty easy to deduce that there is an anticorrelation between ability to adjust riding schedules and ability to pay increased fees.
    - dantheman 7y ago
      Why, shifts can change - especially when it works out for everyone.
      - colechristensen 7y ago
        Restaurants aren't going to change their hours, hospitals aren't going to change their shifts, what motivation does an employer have to make changes? It doesn't cost employers anything so they are unlikely to care and jobs aren't exactly elastic goods either.
        bluGill 7y ago
        Restaurants don't need to change their hours - they need their employees in before the rush hour and working during it because that is when people are going to be there. You 7:45 coffee on the way to work was made by someone who got in at 6:00 am to setup the coffee pot. Hospitals aren't going to change their shifts (unless staff demands it - they might), but a large number of people going in at rush hour are not doing shift work where they need to be in at a particular time. I can adjust my schedule a lot if I want, fares (and traffic) can be motivation to doso.
- nikofeyn 7y ago
  > Seems like a good way to increase rates in a somewhat progressive way. how is it progressive, exactly? seems like it’s just another tax on the poor who have to get to jobs at exact times.
  - jmknoll 7y ago
    Because professionals working full-time jobs and commuting at rush hour can typically afford the higher fare, while people working part-time/odd jobs/commuting to interviews/not working at all probably aren't the ones taking the rush hour trains. Sure, there are some working poor who need to be in the office 9-5, but the majority of people working full time regular hours aren't poor. And for people who can't afford the increase, you just introduce an exception (if you make under $40,000 per year you don't pay the increased fare, or something like that)
    - namdnay 7y ago
      You realise there’s a lot of people between wealthy professionals and part-time/odd job workers right? A secretary has to be on time, so does a cashier. I’m not sure what good peak pricing would do, apart from push them to less carbon-efficient forms of transport?
      - s1artibartfast 7y ago
        As long as the lines are still running at max capacity, you are still taking the same number of vehicles off the road. If you extend the period of max-capacity, you taking more cars off the road. The question is if the benefit of more revenue and environmental savings warrants making the secretaries an cashiers adapt to less efficient schedules (eg come in earlier, stay later)
        SmellyGeekBoy 7y ago
        It's sad that making lower earners' lives even more difficult would even be a consideration in the first place. Increasing capacity would also result in taking more vehicles off the road.
earthboundkid 7y ago
MTA doesn’t even have variable pricing for distance. It’s a pretty poorly designed system qua system. It has good coverage. Everything else is substandard internationally.
- L_Rahman 7y ago
  Peak and especially distance based pricing are fundamentally regressive and unjust tax schemes that penalize the poor. Subway fares are already regressive in that they represent a larger share of income in poorer people than in the rich, making it distance based so that people who can't afford to live in the core are charged more makes the problem 10x worse.
  - iamthirsty 7y ago
    Just because you may have a larger income than others doesn't mean you should pay more money to equal a lower income person's cost percentage of income wise, that's unjust in itself.
    - miglmj 7y ago
      It doesn't mean you shouldn't, either. There's nuance to every situation, particularly when we're discussing the means by which some people quite literally survive, vs. luxury or leisure goods and services.
  - CapricornNoble 7y ago
    Distance pricing seems to work just fine here in Japan, although I did't dig into the data on public transit, just based on my personal experience. Fares in Osaka or Tokyo are ~$2 per 3-4 stations from your departure point. Riding to Kyoto from downtown Osaka (40km) is ~$8 and 8 stops across two lines. The prices overall are low (IMO), and Japan has lower wage inequality than the US (IIRC).
  - zaroth 7y ago
    It’s not an unjust or regressive tax scheme to charge more for greater service. This is incorrectly repurposing the language of taxation to the reality of transit fares. It is certainly correct that having fixed fares across time and distance is a government subsidy which arguably may even effectively target poor riders. The lack of a subsidy is fundamentally not the same as a tax. But when a subsidy distorts the market to the point where it causes inefficiencies in the market, those inefficiencies can undermine the value or effectiveness of the subsidy, sometimes altogether. I.e. lack of peek pricing causing massive ridership spikes at specific hours overloading the system and making it break down. A theoretically better system might be one with a fixed monthly fare credit for low income riders, while also having peek pricing. This shifts demand to keep the system running more smoothly while also making transit more affordable for lower income riders. But then, why not ask the question, if we’re giving money to low income riders, why give rebates only to low income people who ride the train? Why have a low income subsidy specifically for subway ridership versus any of a dozen other things people fundamentally need. Why micromanage to that level?
objektif 7y ago
Emm how about increasing the capacity? For gods sake why would do such a thing like “peak procing” to a public transportation system :). Not everything is a optimization honework assignment. This is real life some unfortunate people who have less income than you have go to places too. Number of people during peak hours is enough deterrent itself. You dont need to introduce extra cost. Shall we introduce peak pricing to fire trucks as well?
namdnay 7y ago
Then the best thing to do is increase that capacity! Every rider on the subway is a bit less pollution in the city air

maxlybbert 7y ago

Is it possible that getting rid of the subsidies might improve worker efficiency?

atoav 7y ago
If only there was a way to decide on what local governments should do based on certain topics. In most cities where public transport is in the hands of the local government, the direction things should take is decided by voting and governments that fuck up public transport, are voted out. This is how it works on a city level in many european cities at least.

programmertote 7y ago

I grew up in a third world country in SE Asia and moved to the US for college. One thing that astounds me about public workers in US is that they are super rude and entitled, while seemingly having poor work ethics. I take MTA subway every week day and at least once a weekend. On weekends, you'll see workers repairing or doing maintenance on tracks because .... Hurricane Sandy (circa 2012) apparently destroyed the infrastructure. I mean I moved to NYC in 2016 and that maintenance has been going on every weekend since then (probably it started even before 2016). Some of the trains will not run or will skip over some local stops and it really inconveniences millions of commuters every weekend. The trains are supposed to slowly move around the areas worker are 'in action' (I read somewhere that it's because a few worker died by being hit by moving train, so they now require trains to move very slowly while blaring horns to warn workers ahead; I still felt that's unnecessary unless there's a clear distinction between which line workers operate on and as long as these workers are smart enough to not encroach on the active lines. Anyway, enough about that). While the trains move slowly, I see a lot of workers simply just sitting around or doing nothing. The same is true on the 9th ave x 50+th street area where there's active water sanitation department's work going on. I walk along 9th ave every weekday morning and there are a lot of idle 'workers' who are probably supervising. I'd say only about half of them are doing useful work while others sit/stand around and chat. No wonder these public projects take years to finish and have budget overrun. No wonder the US can't compete with other countries (ahem, like China and anywhere in Asia) where workers have better work ethics. The US blue collar workers like to complain about their diminishing salaries and industries, but they won't be able to compete for long while their counterparts in other developing regions are working harder.

rayiner 7y ago
Our German au pair was astounded that every project that requires shutting down a lane on a road has two guys waving people through the remaining lane. Apparently in Germany they just use portable traffic signals.
- bpicolo 7y ago
  I live in the US and am still astounded by this. I've seen cases where we have a portable traffic signal that's also manned by two guys.

L_Rahman 7y ago

I don't understand why this comment was voted into the negative, but I suspect that it has something to do with the world view of the people who oppose taxes on a fundamental level. To those of you, I ask - why? New York's flat non-distance based fare is one of the great democratic institutions of the city. Whether you live in Flushing, Rego Park or Gramercy; whether you ride one stop or make four transfers - you pay the same fare. The only way this can work is if those of us with more wealth take care of those of us with less. What seems wrong about this?

SamReidHughes 7y ago
It encourages people to live in inefficient places and mooch off everybody else.
- ako 7y ago
  You want people to live in inefficient places, it's not doable for everybody to live in the nearest location. All that does is skyrocket housing prices, and drive out people with lower paid jobs.
  - SamReidHughes 7y ago
    That's the idea. You drive people with low paid jobs out of living in places they can't afford without mooching off of their neighbors. They move closer, get a smaller apartment, people build more densely, or they get a job elsewhere, or they eat the true cost of travel, less want to do it, wages increase somewhat. I used to travel, in Philadelphia, from a Main Line-adjacent community, on a bus to 69th Street Station, and then on the Market-Frankford Line, and then switched to the Broad Street line, all the way up to Temple U. for a $10/hr job, on a $1.30 token plus a $.60 transfer, each way. That's outrageous. I was mooching off the system, and my employer was mooching off the system as well. If they made me pay higher fares, well, I could afford it. What's an extra $3.80 when you're making $10/hr? At that wage, it was a small fraction of the time spent commuting.
- zanny 7y ago
  Encouraging people to live attached to a subway and then incentivizing their usage of it, regardless of distance in almost any circumstance, is a huge transit efficiency boon for the economy. If you price people out of the trains so they start driving cars again or even taking busses you are suddenly losing a huge amount of volumetric efficiency in your transit system. Optimal cities can get almost everyone anywhere either walking, biking, or riding train all the time. Any requirement for road bound vehicles is an infrastructure failure of city planning. There are exceptional circumstances (moving heavy items that can't be carried) but they should be just that - exceptional, and rare.