MetroCard bonus dead
The cost of a subway ride is staying the same — but say goodbye to your MetroCard bonus.
The MTA board voted Wednesday to keep the base fare for subway, bus and Access-A-Ride trips at $2.75, while eliminating the 5% bonus for putting multiple rides on a pay-per-ride MetroCard.
Straphangers who buy unlimited MetroCards on a weekly or monthly basis will see increases, according to the MTA board, which also voted to hike fares on the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North lines as well as the agency’s bridge and tunnel tolls.
Increases on the commuter trains will hit riders on April 21, while bridge and tunnel tolls will go up March 31.
“It was painful for a lot of reasons for a lot of people, but we had to do it,” acting Metropolitan Transportation Authority Chairman Fernando Ferrer told reporters after the vote. “It was within inflation, so it wasn’t exactly a mugging.”
The MetroCard bonus reduces the cost of single ride by 13 cents, to $2.62. Losing it will affect the 41% of riders who load money on their MetroCards — particularly low-income New Yorkers who welcome the savings in the long run, according to MTA board member Andrew Albert.
“I question why we would then sock the best customers," Albert said at the MTA meeting.
The cost of a 30-day unlimited pass will jump $6 to $127. A seven-day pass will increase $1 to $33.
The MTA board members voted 9 to 2 in favor of the hikes while the tolls passed 10 to 1.
While the board said the fare and toll hikes were needed, they slammed the authority for how it does business — like making the city and state put in money before hitting up riders.
“We keep asking riders to put their contribution into our system first before we know what the state and city is going to do,” said member Veronia Vanterpool.
Andrew Saul, a board member who voted against the hikes, said the riders are “getting screwed” at an agency where there’s costly construction projects and overtime.
“This is a bloated bureaucracy,” Saul said. “This thing is full of waste.”
Meanwhile, LIRR and Metro-North commuters, who pay based on distance and time of day, will shell out nearly 4% more for their trips.
The maximum increase in monthly tickets is $15 and $5.75 for a weekly. one-way ticket price hikes are capped at 50 cents.
Taking the MTA’s seven bridges and two tunnels will soon be pricier, too.
Drivers with E-ZPass will see 6% hikes; those without the electronic toll payment device will be hit with a nearly 12% jump in tolls.
The five major crossings — Robert F. Kennedy, Bronx-Whitestone and Throgs Neck bridges, and the Hugh L. Carey and Queens Midtown tunnels — will see E-ZPass tolls jump to $6.12 each way.
The Henry Hudson Bridge will rise to $2.80 per trip, while the MarineParkway-Gil Hodges Memorial and Cross Bay Veterans Memorial bridges will be $2.05 with E-ZPass.
The Verrazzano Bridge — famous for its sky-high oneway tolls into Staten Island from Brooklyn — will climb to $19 from $17 for drivers without E-ZPass; the toll increase will be $6.88 for EZPass users.
As drivers, subway and bus riders are poised to take a financial hit, MTA officials said the agency will cut costs and hold to performance goals.
"You cannot improve something you do not measure and consistently report on," Ferrer said.