Bronxites to MTA: Fare Hike is the Last Resort

By Lennin Reyes

Bronx Journal Staff Writer

As Bronx residents continue to recover from Hurricane Sandy and a subsequent Nor’easter, they are dismayed at the prospect of yet another MTA fare hike.

Commuters asked for the agency to postpone its hearings on the hike, due to the continuous clean-up efforts across the city, but the Bronx’s hearing was still held as scheduled, on November 13 at Hostos Community College. Attendees say the MTA has its priorities out of whack, beginning with the postponement of some hearings. “You postponed the hearing for Staten Island, but you should have postponed all of the hearings,” William Stanford Jr. said.

As for the proposed fare hike, the agency has several proposals, which could raise the base fare as high as $2.75 and the monthly unlimited MetroCard by a whopping $21. Bronx Community College student Abel Tavarez said that the existing price is too high for him and others to afford. “I have to walk home from work because I can’t afford it,” he said. “I would like to be able to afford a weekly or a monthly to go to school, work and maybe visit the library on weekends.”

Some of the proposals include eliminating a seven percent bonus to MetroCards $10 and higher. Bronxites such as Camala Jackson rely on the bonus to provide a crunch in their budgets. “Our income is rapidly dwindling in our eyes,” Jackson said. “We suck up every increase, yet we wait a long time for a filthy bus.”

While many in attendance argue about subway and bus increases, elected officials say the MTA needs to look at the bigger picture. “The significant increase in express bus fare would hurt the constituents in my district who have long commutes to Midtown or downtown Manhattan,” Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz (D-Riverdale) said. He adds that if the city and state add funding to the MTA, the investment would result in higher ridership.

In addition to the fare hike, the hearing also brought other concerns to the table. One of them is the proposal for a bus route running between western Hunts Point and the Prospect Avenue station. One attendee says that the one-mile-plus route would be underutilized, further adding to the MTA’s burden. “The proposed western terminus is one quarter of a mile from the Bx6, and a mile to the Hub,” David Kupferberg, member of Committee for Better Transit, said.

He proposes that the new bus be extended, either along the Bx6 route to Yankee Stadium or along the Bx4 route to the Hub. “I think that either of these extensions would, at least, pay for itself by preventing unnecessary service increases that would be underutilized for most of their routes,” he added.

Another concern heard at the hearing is the push for the MTA to install elevators at one of the Bronx’s busiest stations. “We need an elevator at the 149th Street/Grand Concourse station,” South Bronx Community Congress member Julio Munoz said. The elevator would cater to those unable to climb up several flights of stairs, but also, Munoz added, it would serve clientele at Lincoln Hospital, Hostos Community College, the Gateway Center Mall, the Pregones Theater and other points of interest. “If you want our money, reinvest in our area,” he added.