August 19, 2025
Good evening! I’m Kara Gurl, Planning and Advocacy Manager at the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA (PCAC).
I’m here tonight to talk about some very welcome fare policy changes, along with some improvements that could make transit simpler and more affordable for riders.
We’re thrilled you’re proposing to expand the senior and disability half-fare to the AM peak, something PCAC has long advocated for. We also support planned, moderate fare increases coupled with targeted discounts.
Making the 7-day rolling fare cap permanent and adding it to express buses is great. It makes total sense not to have to pay upfront for rides, as with the unlimited MetroCard offerings. However, adding a single-day—and most importantly, 30-day—fare cap would ensure that the most frequent riders are not subjected to a fare increase of up to 18%. We urge you to work with Cubic to program OMNY readers in this way.
We’re also thrilled to see that CityTicket will become permanent, and that all one-way city zone fares on TVMs will match its price. PCAC has long called for this fix so that no one is accidentally overcharged simply for not knowing about CityTicket, and we appreciate that you’ve listened.
With CityTicket, the one-way ticket price is standard no matter where in the city you travel within a single railroad. But because there are still five different fare zones across the railroads within the boroughs, the cost of a weekly or monthly ticket varies whether you’re traveling from Jamaica to Grand Central, Woodside to Grand Central, or Fordham to Grand Central—as much as a $17.50 weekly or $45 monthly difference. It’s time to create one unified city zone with one unified fare for each ticket option. We also renew our longstanding call for a CityTicket Weekly with transfers to subways and buses. Similarly, we like the concept of an unlimited day pass, but it should be valid for use across both railroads.
Thank you for holding these hearings, but we encourage you to schedule additional full hearings around the region. We’re confident that with more discussion, we can settle on fare policy choices that bring riders a more unified, affordable transit system.