Stringer’s Metro-North, LIRR fare-slashing plan

City Controller Scott Stringer wants Metro-North and LIRR trips within city limits to cost no more than a subway ride — $2.75 with free transfers.

Stringer, speaking Tuesday at a Long Island Rail Road stop in Queens, said that chopping the price for commuter rail trips taken within the city could fill empty seats while giving riders an alternative to the struggling and packed subway.

The proposed pricing policy would cost the MTA $50 million in lost revenue — but that's just a fraction of the cost of adding new subway stations and lines to meet demand, Stringer argues.

Riders, meanwhile, would save up to $7.50 from paying a lower rate than the potential $10.25 one-way rushhour ticket on the commuter rails, according to Stringer.

“This makes economic sense and it also goes to the heart of the crisis,” Stringer said. “We have people stranded at their subway stations, with limited options.”

An average LIRR train has 233 empty seats during the morning rush hour and 282 empty seats during evening peak service, according to Stringer's report.

His proposal would give commuters a ride for the price of a subway or bus trip to 38 city stations, including 18 in neighborhoods beyond the reach of the subway system.

“Our proposal can change lives,” Stringer said. “We are in a transit emergency and the people that we're talking about are in a literal transit desert.”

At the Woodside LIRR station, commuter Yeshi Wangdi said his $6.25 fare for a 10-minute trip to Penn Station was already worth the money.

“I'd be more than happy to take $2.75 than the 7 train,” Wangdi, 28, a developer, said.

The MTA's finances are in precarious situation, according to a recent report from the New York State Controller Tom DiNapoli.

Even with fare hikes due next year and in 2021, the MTA faces a $262 million budget gap in 2020.

Stringer, meanwhile, is supporting congestion pricing as one way to generate new revenue for the MTA.

MTA spokesman Aaron Donovan said the agency disputes Stringer's figures on how many empty seats there are on LIRR trains.

For Stringer's “recommendations … to be implemented, a subsidy is required,” Donovan said in a statement. “It is fiscally irresponsible to make a transit benefit recommendation without identifying a source of funding.”