MTA Estimates $52M In Unused Fares
One little piece of revenue for the MTA is something unknown to casual riders. The revenue I am referring to is fare liability. This is the amount of money the MTA makes when riders do not use the full monetary amount on their MetroCard & let it lapse or from the purchase of fares not used such as rail road tickets.
Next year, the cash strapped agency expects to bring in $52M from fare liability. Pete Donohue of the New York Daily News has more:
The MTA estimates $52 million worth of bus and subway trips will be purchased – but not used – by straphangers next year.
That mountain of cash would buy more than 23 million trips at the highest fare, the $2.25 base fare. It also would buy every resident of Staten Island a 30-day MetroCard at the proposed higher price of $99.
The $52 million is listed in the Metropolitan Transportation Authority financial plans as one of the sources of revenue in the $12 billion spending plan.
Click here for the complete report.
Personally I don’t see the agency reaching this figure. With all the talk of what equals out to a MetroCard tax, I don’t think there will be as many unused rides throughout the system. This is the kind of budget figure that will be mentioned in a future board meeting as coming in severely under budget.
My main beef in the story lies with the potential change in the allowed time frame to use a railroad ticket. I feel the 90 day window is just fine as it has saved me on a # of occasions as I had an extra ticket or two lying around. If they were to lower it, 30 days should be the smallest time frame & not the 7 mentioned. Enough with putting the screws to riders.
xoxo Transit Blogger
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