Why is New York City Raising the Subway Fare?
None of this is to suggest that the New York City subway is perfect. As the city’s Straphangers Campaign notes, it’s still got many miles (of track) to go. And fare hikes do not always equal better service. In the case of New York City amidst a recession, that equation remains elusive: the MTA will still need to cut back on service in order to balance its budget. The fare hike, which also brings the price of a monthly MetroCard to $89 from $81, could well bring with it another set of problems. In times of recession, the demand elasticity of subway fare hikes — how willing will New Yorkers be to ride the subway as the fare rises — goes down. And while the New York subway saw record numbers of riders in 2008 — 2.37 billion rides, a 3.1 percent increase from 2007 — the subway has been suffering from a drop in ridership every month since the start of 2009. New York could well be in for a vicious cycle of low ridership + fare hikes and service cuts, which leads to even lower ridership,
