by Alex Marshall, Editor, Spotlight on the Region
I got off the train the other day. I was heading uptown to Columbia University at 116th Street and Broadway, a relatively long ride from my home in Brooklyn, and I realized that I was hungry. I got off at Park Place in Lower Manhattan, found a deli, and ordered a sandwich. Then I got back on the train and continued my journey.
I had resigned myself to a long, hungry trip, but then I remembered that this month I had bought an Unlimited Ride MetroCard. I don't usually do that, because my work schedule doesn't always require me to go somewhere daily on the subway. Thus financially, it's kind of a toss-up to me as to whether I should spend $76 (which will rise to $81 on March 2nd) on a monthly card, or just put money on a single-ride card.
This month for various reasons I bought an Unlimited Ride Card, and it was interesting to see how my travel changed. I got off the train when I was hungry. I stopped at small shops on the way home. I tried out a new place for lunch, or ran an errand, all because I didn't have to worry about that extra $2.
In short, I enjoyed life more. And in a sense, the city enjoyed me more. Those restaurant and shop owners got my dollars they wouldn't have otherwise. The subway got my extra ridership at times when it had plenty of capacity.
Economists talk about the elasticity of purchases, meaning how price-sensitive a purchase is. Commuting to work is very inelastic because most people have to get to work and they will pay what they have to get there. Sure, in the long run they may move to a different neighborhood if commuting costs are too high, but they won't change habits much on a daily basis. Not so with more optional trips. If you are thinking of stopping for a book on the way home, or trying out a new place for lunch, or even sunbathing in a park, then an extra $2 or even $1 for transit will be a significant deterrent. Such trips are very elastic commodities.
All of this got me thinking of ways the MTA could promote off-peak, optional-trip riding as a way to get more use out of the transit system and to promote a higher quality of life for the city and region.
About half of all MTA riders do so with unlimited ride cards. From my perspective, that's too low a percentage. If you could increase that figure to 70 or 80 percent, people would use the transit system much more fully, more efficiently really.
One way to do that would be to lower the cost of an Unlimited Ride MetroCard substantially, while raising the price of a single fare. This would encourage more residents to buy the unlimited ride cards, while hitting tourists and traveling business people with the single fare charges. This is a more effective way of encouraging off-peak ridership than lower-cost single fares at off-peak hours, which has also been discussed.
Such a policy, if structured correctly, would be the biggest boon to lower-income transit riders. They are the ones who need unlimited-ride passes the most. Armed with an unlimited ride pass, a poorer person could truly extract the maximum value out of the transit system, both in terms of getting to a job but also in using his or her spare time. Any proposal to raise single-fare prices is often attacked as a hurtful to the poor. But if combined with a drop in unlimited-ride prices, and perhaps policies to get such unlimited ride cards into the hands of lower-income people, then this would largely not be so.
There are other creative ways to lower or drop the price barriers to subway and bus use. I've heard it suggested that special passes be offered at heavily discounted prices that would only work during off-peak hours and weekends. I'm told that London is trying out a system where once you spend a certain amount of money on The Tube during a defined time period, you aren't charged for any additional rides beyond that point. You could even consider making travel free, or close to free, during off-peak hours.
This last suggestion might sound insane in dollar-and-cents-oriented New York City, but we shouldn't forget that the public not only uses the New York City transit system, it owns it. And to get the most use out of this publicly owned utility, prices should be set as low as possible.
That's essentially the case with how we price usage of most streets and highways. No one charges us to pull our car onto Eighth Avenue, Clover Lane or even most Interstates. They are free to all comers, and thus heavily used. True, we drivers pay a gas tax, but that tax is unrelated to the use of any particular thoroughfare, and thus does not affect our choices. With highways, we need to be charged more to encourage more efficient use of them. With transit, it's just the opposite.
To make subways more like streets, we need for the city, state and federal governments to start kicking in a lot more money, so that fares, including unlimited ride passes, can be lower. If you have an Unlimited Ride MetroCard, you start using the subway as one does roads, without thinking about it. That's a good thing for citizen's quality of life, and a good thing for the economic health of the city.
I got off the train the other day. I was heading uptown to Columbia University at 116th Street and Broadway, a relatively long ride from my home in Brooklyn, and I realized that I was hungry. I got off at Park Place in Lower Manhattan, found a deli, and ordered a sandwich. Then I got back on the train and continued my journey.
I had resigned myself to a long, hungry trip, but then I remembered that this month I had bought an Unlimited Ride MetroCard. I don't usually do that, because my work schedule doesn't always require me to go somewhere daily on the subway. Thus financially, it's kind of a toss-up to me as to whether I should spend $76 (which will rise to $81 on March 2nd) on a monthly card, or just put money on a single-ride card.
This month for various reasons I bought an Unlimited Ride Card, and it was interesting to see how my travel changed. I got off the train when I was hungry. I stopped at small shops on the way home. I tried out a new place for lunch, or ran an errand, all because I didn't have to worry about that extra $2.
In short, I enjoyed life more. And in a sense, the city enjoyed me more. Those restaurant and shop owners got my dollars they wouldn't have otherwise. The subway got my extra ridership at times when it had plenty of capacity.
Economists talk about the elasticity of purchases, meaning how price-sensitive a purchase is. Commuting to work is very inelastic because most people have to get to work and they will pay what they have to get there. Sure, in the long run they may move to a different neighborhood if commuting costs are too high, but they won't change habits much on a daily basis. Not so with more optional trips. If you are thinking of stopping for a book on the way home, or trying out a new place for lunch, or even sunbathing in a park, then an extra $2 or even $1 for transit will be a significant deterrent. Such trips are very elastic commodities.
All of this got me thinking of ways the MTA could promote off-peak, optional-trip riding as a way to get more use out of the transit system and to promote a higher quality of life for the city and region.
About half of all MTA riders do so with unlimited ride cards. From my perspective, that's too low a percentage. If you could increase that figure to 70 or 80 percent, people would use the transit system much more fully, more efficiently really.
One way to do that would be to lower the cost of an Unlimited Ride MetroCard substantially, while raising the price of a single fare. This would encourage more residents to buy the unlimited ride cards, while hitting tourists and traveling business people with the single fare charges. This is a more effective way of encouraging off-peak ridership than lower-cost single fares at off-peak hours, which has also been discussed.
Such a policy, if structured correctly, would be the biggest boon to lower-income transit riders. They are the ones who need unlimited-ride passes the most. Armed with an unlimited ride pass, a poorer person could truly extract the maximum value out of the transit system, both in terms of getting to a job but also in using his or her spare time. Any proposal to raise single-fare prices is often attacked as a hurtful to the poor. But if combined with a drop in unlimited-ride prices, and perhaps policies to get such unlimited ride cards into the hands of lower-income people, then this would largely not be so.
There are other creative ways to lower or drop the price barriers to subway and bus use. I've heard it suggested that special passes be offered at heavily discounted prices that would only work during off-peak hours and weekends. I'm told that London is trying out a system where once you spend a certain amount of money on The Tube during a defined time period, you aren't charged for any additional rides beyond that point. You could even consider making travel free, or close to free, during off-peak hours.
This last suggestion might sound insane in dollar-and-cents-oriented New York City, but we shouldn't forget that the public not only uses the New York City transit system, it owns it. And to get the most use out of this publicly owned utility, prices should be set as low as possible.
That's essentially the case with how we price usage of most streets and highways. No one charges us to pull our car onto Eighth Avenue, Clover Lane or even most Interstates. They are free to all comers, and thus heavily used. True, we drivers pay a gas tax, but that tax is unrelated to the use of any particular thoroughfare, and thus does not affect our choices. With highways, we need to be charged more to encourage more efficient use of them. With transit, it's just the opposite.
To make subways more like streets, we need for the city, state and federal governments to start kicking in a lot more money, so that fares, including unlimited ride passes, can be lower. If you have an Unlimited Ride MetroCard, you start using the subway as one does roads, without thinking about it. That's a good thing for citizen's quality of life, and a good thing for the economic health of the city.
@RegionalPlan