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Can you tell me how much does it cost in US to have unlimited rides for month by MetroCard? I'm quite shocked that you do not(??) have flat feet. In my country

by hansor 5y ago

Can you tell me how much does it cost in US to have unlimited rides for month by MetroCard? I'm quite shocked that you do not(??) have flat feet. In my country it is 35$ per month for unlimited rides on metro, buses and trams.

dheera 5y ago
There are daily/monthly plans in most US cities that you can add to your card, and if you do, it won't charge you per entry. For NYC it's $33 for 7 days or $127 for 30 days. The only people it really makes sense for are people who use it every single business day for commutes plus some more, and tourists who will use it several times in a single day. For people who don't use the system consistently every day it doesn't really make sense. In the case of NYC, 42 rides a month (== round trip every business day) still doesn't make sense to get a monthly pass, you need to also use it on the weekends for some more stuff in order for it to make sense.
- hansor 5y ago
  So you are telling me that people do not travel 5x(10x) per week to work, and THEN in weekends by metro/buses? And its minority?
  - dheera 5y ago
    I think with actual NYC residents, yes, it makes perfect sense. The reality is the majority of people working in NYC don't live in NYC due to housing costs, so they won't need or even have access to the subway on weekends, they'll be in NJ or Long Island or somewhere else where subway coverage is sparse or non-existent, and other transit systems in those places don't take the MTA cards. And in terms of public transit usage, NYC is probably the highest in the US. I've lived in Boston and now near San Francisco. In my 10 years of living in the Boston area as a student, I never found a monthly pass useful, even when I was able to get a student pass for half price the math did not make it worth the cost. Being a student was special though because I was able to walk to 80% of the places I needed to go, and I had a bike which was pretty much 100% of my transportation during the summer months, and Boston is far more bike friendly than NYC in my opinion (modulo weather). In the SF bay area public transit coverage is so sparse it doesn't make sense to get a monthly pass either. Just yesterday I swiped into a BART station, then promptly swiped out and took an Uber from that BART station to my destination BART station because the wait time was 27 minutes. And on several occasions I've been in trains that have hit pedestrians and cars or delayed by engine failures of sorts and gotten delayed for 90+ minutes so I've had to get off and get an Uber.
    - ghaff 5y ago
      Commuter rail passes make sense in Boston. I haven't gone into Boston regularly from the exurbs for ages. But when I was sometimes commuting there was a monthly pass and also a "10-pack" or whatever it was for irregular commuters like me. But, yeah, you generally have to be a very frequent transit user to benefit from passes.
  - pessimizer 5y ago
    The people who run public transport in the US realized 10 or 20 years ago that you don't have to give discounts to people who need to take the train or bus to work every day. If anything, you should charge them more because they have no choice.
- fortran77 5y ago
  Many people get these subsidized.

by hansor 5y ago

dheera 5y ago

There are daily/monthly plans in most US cities that you can add to your card, and if you do, it won't charge you per entry. For NYC it's $33 for 7 days or $127 for 30 days. The only people it really makes sense for are people who use it every single business day for commutes plus some more, and tourists who will use it several times in a single day. For people who don't use the system consistently every day it doesn't really make sense. In the case of NYC, 42 rides a month (== round trip every business day) still doesn't make sense to get a monthly pass, you need to also use it on the weekends for some more stuff in order for it to make sense.

hansor 5y ago
So you are telling me that people do not travel 5x(10x) per week to work, and THEN in weekends by metro/buses? And its minority?
- dheera 5y ago
  I think with actual NYC residents, yes, it makes perfect sense. The reality is the majority of people working in NYC don't live in NYC due to housing costs, so they won't need or even have access to the subway on weekends, they'll be in NJ or Long Island or somewhere else where subway coverage is sparse or non-existent, and other transit systems in those places don't take the MTA cards. And in terms of public transit usage, NYC is probably the highest in the US. I've lived in Boston and now near San Francisco. In my 10 years of living in the Boston area as a student, I never found a monthly pass useful, even when I was able to get a student pass for half price the math did not make it worth the cost. Being a student was special though because I was able to walk to 80% of the places I needed to go, and I had a bike which was pretty much 100% of my transportation during the summer months, and Boston is far more bike friendly than NYC in my opinion (modulo weather). In the SF bay area public transit coverage is so sparse it doesn't make sense to get a monthly pass either. Just yesterday I swiped into a BART station, then promptly swiped out and took an Uber from that BART station to my destination BART station because the wait time was 27 minutes. And on several occasions I've been in trains that have hit pedestrians and cars or delayed by engine failures of sorts and gotten delayed for 90+ minutes so I've had to get off and get an Uber.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    Commuter rail passes make sense in Boston. I haven't gone into Boston regularly from the exurbs for ages. But when I was sometimes commuting there was a monthly pass and also a "10-pack" or whatever it was for irregular commuters like me. But, yeah, you generally have to be a very frequent transit user to benefit from passes.
- pessimizer 5y ago
  The people who run public transport in the US realized 10 or 20 years ago that you don't have to give discounts to people who need to take the train or bus to work every day. If anything, you should charge them more because they have no choice.
fortran77 5y ago
Many people get these subsidized.