New York Is Planning to Subsidize Subway Rides for Its Poorest Residents

In early 2019, the L train in New York City will shut down for 15 months to repair damage caused during Hurricane Sandy. Leading up to the closure, VICE will be providing relevant updates and policy proposals, as well as profiles of community members and businesses along the affected route in a series we're calling Tunnel Vision. Read more about the project here.

Last week, VICE reported on the ‘Fair Fares’ campaign in New York, an ambitious push to offer half-priced MetroCards to nearly 800,000 working-class New Yorkers. According to studies, low-income New Yorkers had the hardest time affording the $2.75 cost for a single ride, and yet relied on mass transit more than any other income group. Often times, they told researchers, they have to choose between buying food or riding the subway.

Yet, on Thursday afternoon, a major sign of hope for those hundreds of thousands of commuters emerged: according to the New York Times the city has decided to fund the program in the 2019 budget. Once made official, the move would make New York the most populous city in the country to subsidize mass transit for its most disadvantaged residents, ahead of San Francisco, Seattle, and Los Angeles.

The deal will reportedly include $106 million for the first six months of the program, which starts in January 2019. That’s only half of the $212 million that the Council initially requested to pay for its entire cost, and will cover 40 percent of eligible New Yorkers who live below the federal poverty level. But officials have said that once fully implemented and funded, closer to 80 percent would qualify. (Spokespersons from the mayor’s and speaker’s offices both told VICE the negotiations are ongoing.)

Per reports, the budget deal was brokered between New York City Council Speaker Corey Johnson and Mayor Bill de Blasio in a late-night, closed-door meeting. Johnson had made ‘Fair Fares’ one of his top priorities in his first year as speaker; Mayor de Blasio, meanwhile, had long been hesitant to embrace it. While supportive of the substance, the mayor felt that the city shouldn’t be on the hook to pay for something that, he believed, the state should fund by passing his proposed tax on the city’s highest earners. The city was already coughing up more than it wanted to fix the ailing subway system, he argued.

Yet critics chastised the mayor for holding up a measure that they believed fell easily in line with his progressive agenda. The city already subsidized MetroCards for a number of constituents, advocates told VICE, including the elderly, disabled, public school students, and 40,000 New Yorkers receiving cash assistance. Why not the poor?

Two years ago, Fair Fares was a pipe dream amongst transit advocates. Now, it seems on the verge of becoming reality. “This will make an enormous difference for economically struggling New Yorkers,” said Rebecca Bailin, an organizer for Riders Alliance, one of the main drivers behind the campaign, in a statement, ”and will be a major step towards making New York a fairer, more equitable city.”

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