NEW YORK—For most New Yorkers, subways and buses are necessities of city living that fall right behind food, clothing and shelter. But with the price of 30-day MetroCard transit pass at $116.50, and possibly primed to rise as high as $121, they’re also on the verge of becoming unaffordable for the 1.7 million city residents living in poverty.
The cost of getting around has gotten so high, some advocates are proposing that New York join a handful of other cities, including Seattle and San Francisco, in offering discounted rides to some low-income residents.
That would be a boon to people like Joshua Mootoo, 29, of Brooklyn, who stopped working as a mechanic a few months ago so he could take classes and get a high school equivalency degree.
“When you’re not getting that much income, to take out half of it and put it on a MetroCard — I can’t do it,” said Mootoo, who has two small children.
A commuter advocacy group, the Riders Alliance, along with the anti-poverty group Community Service Society of New York, has been calling on Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio to include an estimated $200 million in the city’s preliminary budget plan this January that would help pay for discounted rides.
Even an increase of a few dollars would be an additional hardship, said Samuel Santaella. The 23-year-old, his mother and 10-year-old sister get a couple of hundred dollars a month in public assistance.
“The MetroCard is a must,” Santaella said. And to pay for it, he said, “We have to cut down on food a little bit toward the end of the month.”
