Rosalind Carter, MNRCC Member
August 20, 2025
Good evening, I am Rosalind Clay Carter, testifying as a member of the Metro-North Railroad Commuter Council.
As a longtime rider, I support the fare increases, which help keep our trains running frequently and pay for their complex operations. Small, regular and planned incremental increases are much better than the spikes in costs and drastic service reductions that we’re seeing in places like Philadelphia and Chicago.
The proposed changes for ticket purchases are asking us as riders to transform our approach to the way we travel. It’s a lot to ask at once and we hope you will reconsider implementing such dramatic changes so quickly.
I do support the idea of a day pass, provided the 10-percent reduced rate is approved. However, a missing component is programming the system to refund fares for a cancelled or significantly delayed train…or provide other means of getting a refund.
The four-hour expiration and auto activation proposals are a bit perplexing. As someone who used to buy their ticket the night before I travelled, or even days ahead of time, it will take some getting used to. Keeping the 10-trip would allow for advanced planning and be especially helpful for riders not as comfortable with technology as others.
Sometimes it just makes sense to have a ticket that isn’t automatically activated, for instance if you want to be sure your kid has one in their wallet – either virtual or physical. As staunch advocates for a reduced fare “mid-kid” ticket for 12-to-17-year-olds, it would be a good complement to find a solution that preserves an option for people to hand a physical ticket to adolescents without worrying about precise activation windows.
Lastly, thank you for recognizing that seniors and disabled riders deserve to use their discounts for morning peak travel. We’ve spoken about this for years, and we’re glad we’ve been heard.