{"id":3010,"date":"2007-12-20T03:27:04","date_gmt":"2007-12-20T11:27:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2007\/12\/who_needs_a_fare_hike_when_the_mta_is_there_to_nickel_and_dime_you_into_solvency.html"},"modified":"2007-12-20T03:27:04","modified_gmt":"2007-12-20T11:27:04","slug":"who_needs_a_far","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/archives\/2007\/12\/who_needs_a_far.html","title":{"rendered":"Who Needs A Fare Hike When The MTA Is There To Nickel And Dime You Into Solvency?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The MTA takes a page from the decrepit bottler\/distributor industry<\/a> by cleaning up on riders who can’t be bothered to use up every last cent on their MetroCards<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Beginning in March, many subway and bus riders will have to learn a new math — and it could leave them scratching their heads. Or gnashing their teeth.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, the board of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority voted to reduce the bonus that riders receive on pay-per-ride MetroCards, from 20 to 15 percent. The board also decided to increase some other fares.<\/p>\n

The change in the bonus means many riders will see odd amounts of spare change — as little as a nickel or a dime — left over on their MetroCards. And if large numbers of exasperated riders throw away cards with balances of just 5 or 10 cents, the result could add up to a windfall to the authority in unclaimed fares.<\/p>\n

The current 20 percent bonus system makes for simple math: Buy five rides and you get one ride free. In other words, if you feed $10 into a MetroCard vending machine, the card will come out showing a balance of $12.<\/p>\n

Under the new plan, the minimum that riders must spend to qualify for a bonus will be reduced to $7, from $10, in an effort to put a fare discount within the reach of more people with lower incomes. But in that case, when someone puts $7 on a card, an additional $1.05 will appear on the card, for a total of $8.05.<\/p>\n

If they take four subway trips, at $2 each, that will leave a balance on the card of five cents. If they refill the card with another $7, it will then show a total value of $8.10, enough for four rides, with a dime left over. The real challenge is figuring out how much to put on the card to bring it up to a round sum.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The MTA takes a page from the decrepit bottler\/distributor industry by cleaning up on riders who can’t be bothered to use up every last cent on their MetroCards: Beginning in March, many subway and bus riders will have to learn a new math — and it could leave them scratching their heads. Or gnashing their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,68,53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-consumer_issues","category-follow_the_money","category-jerk_move"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3010"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3010\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}