When the price goes up to $5, I will ride a bicycle to work when the road is not wet or iced up.

Ok, so I can survive $107/month. But what's to stop them from raising it to $120 next year?

mzungu: This is a bit dramatic. Riding the train at 4 am means a longer commute time. It's a given. You know trains run less frequently, you know that's when they do maintenance. The system is open 24 hours a day. Construction and repairs have to be done sometimes. If you are so "tired", wandering around at 4 am, you might want to consider a few less cocktails and a cab or think about staying closer to home. No one requires you to go downtown to party (or if they do, consider Brooklyn, I never have problems getting home at 4 am but I always carry a flask).

Commuters may pay an extra $20/month. That's only 4.5 Starbucks drinks, 2 cocktails, part of your cable bill, your internet service for your phone. Surely people who can and do buy monthly cards can trim their budget a bit (myself included).

I do agree the $2 should increase as well, but many people who cannot afford $81 a pop often buy smaller increment and per ride cards. They are not just used by tourists. They are often used for people who can only spring for a few bucks at a time.

In 104 years, the fare has only been risen from $.5 to $2.

Somehow, someone is going to get screwed. It's just the reality.

"Make the 30 day $120 and fucking ADD service. $4 a day isn't going to kill anyone."

maybe its not going to kill YOU but try looking past your nose. how could you be so ignorant to think that there are not people in this city already struggling with the $80 monthly pass? As the city keeps cutting jobs and house holds keep losing income the extra expense will be come an even bigger burden. get a clue.

i agree with whitecastle

The service is a disgrace. I live off the A and the 1 line. Besides the ridiculously slow service and constant route changes, I can't stay out late at night or it can take me literally 3 hours to get home.

You wait forever for a train, then the 1 kicks you off at 137th for 40+minutes in a station so full of people you can't move while trains keep unloading more passengers, waiting for the single train that will continue uptown.

The A is no better. Again, you wait forever for a train, then you pray the train will make the stops and not kick you out to look for a bus.

Yeah wandering around at that hour of the morning, exhausted. real safe.

Over a hundred dollars is outrageous. I am totally at the MTAs mercy. Even if I did bike the 11-12 miles from my apt to the office everyday, come rain or snow, there's no where safe to lock a bike.

I completely agree they should hike the single fare riders. Those of us that live and work here but can't afford to live in the neighborhoods we work should not be penalized.

I would rather walk or bike 7 miles a day than give those crooks another fucking cent. The trains and stations are in deplorable shape, surplus or deficit aside. The "service" they offer is disgraceful. FUCK them

A monthly will still be a bargain. I am at $.75 per ride (and I use 3 train lines each time) right now with a montly. That's a steal.

Even at $107 with no service cuts, I come in under a dollar--$.99--a ride. That is still a fantastic deal. Especially when compared to total cost of a drive (maintenance, gas, energy, traffic, etc). Save for a bike, I cannot find a way to get so many places so quickly at $.99 a ride.

Even people who just do the normal 2 trips a day, pay just $1.91 (up from $1.45 now) on a $107 without service cuts monthly. Still under the current base rate and not too insanely high.

@18-- I also think there was a surplus because of higher than expected revenue from real estate taxes. TheMTA gets a cut of all real estate transactions, and when there aren't as many deals (like during this economy), they don't make as much from that revenue stream.

this is fucking ridiculous. i have to take the train every morning and i have no idea what i will do if i can't afford to take it anymore. walk 70 blocks? them raising the monthly last year really pissed me off. i simply can't afford to pay more. they need to raise that stupid single ride and the weekly ones -- the only ones who use that are the fanny-pack wearing blue haired tourists with the maps. you know the ones... they walk so slowly down the stairs that i always miss my train.

Novanglus your question is critically flawed. In this country, we are the government. The us/them dichotomy you use just doesn't exist when you're talk about people/government.

If the budget at my place of employment was doing as badly as the MTA's, we'd be investigated by smart people with no patience.

When I travel to New York, I always buy a daily card. I think it is a bargain. I live in Ohio and have to pay for a car payment, car insurance and gas to get around (gas alone costs me at least $100 a month). If a monthly card goes $107 that breaks down to $3.57 cents per day. Even the daily rate of $9.50 is not bad. It costs less than taking a taxi. If I lived in New York, I would consider myself lucky to have such tranportation. We don't have the subway here and you don't want to ride the bus anywhere.

Have Toussant and the workers who went on the illegal strike pay their fines that were in the millions.

The surplus was in 2003 and the MTA had two sets of books but still passed the fare hike. They are corrupt to the max.

I am so angry at Wall Street and the government for screwing us all. Some day we will overthrow their asses and start a new government that really is -- for the people.

So what are the poor folk supposed to do? Food and rent are up. Now bus & subway fares? How do people think that all the service workers & working poor in this city will afford this?

Single rides in London are FOUR FUCKING POUNDS. Why? Because only people who don't NEED the subway pay single ride. The MTA should stop fucking around and crank the single ride in NY to $4, at least, and give the daily commuters a break.

Make the 30 day $120 and fucking ADD service. $4 a day isn't going to kill anyone.

they shouldn't raise the monthly card and should not raise senior citizen rates. Also the daily and weekly should be increase more since tourists are using them as well.

Excuse my ignorance, but can anyone please explain to me:

What happened to the published 2007 SURPLUS from MTA? How do they go from surplus to emergency mode???

Dumb*ss MTA. They proudly spent millions when upgrading from tokens to cards, yet remained obsolete from the start. Most civilised transit systems, even PATH (inexplicably) swallow & then regurgitate a card on the other side/keep it when it's spent. MTA relishes people swiping & swiping (other being doubly charged) & then cares not about discarded Metro cards.