By: Benjamin Ross PCAC Intern
Good morning, NYCT Committee! I’m Benjy Ross, an intern with the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA, PCAC. We appreciate the roll out of reduced fare OMNY cards announced last week, and look forward to even more affordable access for more New Yorkers.
With City Council recently passing City of Yes, PCAC believes the MTA has an unprecedented opportunity to gain new riders and benefit from the additional revenue they will bring.
City of Yes is slated to build as many as 80,000 new homes and encourage transit-oriented development around our city. In a recently released report, PCAC found that these new homes could generate up to 97,000 new daily transit riders who could provide$309 million a year in new fare revenue to the MTA by 2039.
Recovering ridership from the pandemic and securing additional riders to offset operational costs has been a high priority for the MTA, and City of Yes can be an important catalyst to meet these goals.
To capitalize on this opportunity, PCAC has four key recommendations as City of Yes is implemented, including:
- Work hand in hand with DCP and DOT to enhance service, especially for bus routes in neighborhoods far from subways and in the boroughs outside Manhattan.
- Monitor which subway, bus, or rail projects require capital investments in neighborhoods that see the highest growth from City of Yes in future capital plans.
- Adjust service with revenue gained from additional ridership. The MTA should explore using newly gained fare revenue to increase service, when needed.
- Make paying the fare convenient and affordable on the commuter railroadsbycreating a weekly CityTicket with transfers to subways and buses and expanding Fair Fares to the rails within New York City. Expanding Fair Fares to 200% of the
Federal Poverty Level will further meet the needs of more transit-dependent New Yorkers.
In all, City of Yes is an amazing opportunity that the MTA needs to capitalize on to thrive in the coming years. The City Council has done their job, let’s work to better transit in New York City.
Thank you for your time.