MTA says it will put off fare increase for LIRR until at least next year

Fares will not go up this year for Long Island Rail Road riders, as the MTA has decided to put off a scheduled rate hike vote until at least next year, agency officials said Tuesday.

A fare hike vote was originally scheduled to be taken up by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority Board in January, but was postponed by the agency, citing the financial hardship faced by transit riders because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The issue was expected to be revisited this summer, but according to MTA spokesman Tim Minton, the agency's chairman, Patrick Foye, made the call to further table the proposal after learning the MTA board unanimously believes "that there needs to be relief" for riders impacted by the pandemic, including those who have lost their jobs.

"Therefore, there will be no increase in 2021," Minton said.

The move will become official, Minton said, when the board on Wednesday directs the agency's chief financial officer to remove from the budget the agency's projected $17 million in revenue it stood to gain from a 4% rate hike this year. The MTA's financial plan will still assume fares will go up in 2022.

Since 2010, the MTA has followed a schedule to raise fares every other year — a strategy the agency said has allowed it to keep up with inflation and avoid large rate increases. After last increasing fares by 4% in 2019, the agency was scheduled for its next biennial rate adjustment this year.

Foye’s announcement came after several MTA Board members, including finance committee chairman Lawrence Schwartz — an ally of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo — decried raiding riders’ wallets during a time when the agency is looking to grow back its ridership after it was decimated by the pandemic.

"I don’t think, at this time and place, raising fares on any New Yorker would be appropriate," Schwartz said during an MTA committee meeting Monday. "At a time when we need to encourage increased ridership, raising fares does the opposite."

LIRR weekday ridership remains at less than half of 2019 levels. Some also said raising fares, after receiving $14.5 billion in federal stimulus funding, would be a bad look.

"It would be embarrassing after the billions we’ve seen coming … to suddenly raise fares," board member David Jones, an appointee of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, said during a finance committee meeting Monday.

Jones and other board members suggested the MTA use the extra time to work with state lawmakers, and a new New York City mayor, to come up with ways to generate revenue, including by potentially expanding the Fair Fares program, which offers bus and subway discounts to low-income New York City residents, and through a new gas tax on drivers.

At the same time some advocates discouraged the MTA from increasing fares, some encouraged the LIRR to further discount them. Lisa Daglian, executive director of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA, which includes the LIRR Commuter Council, urged the railroad to introduce a new 20-trip ticket that would be discounted over the cost of 20 peak fares.

With sales of monthly commuter passes down by 85% compared with 2019, the LIRR has said it is considering creating new ticket types to accommodate customers.

"As we enter the next normal, it’s critical to get riders back onboard," Daglian said at a committee meeting Monday. "Creative and flexible tickets will better reflect the changing way we work and travel."

By Alfonso A. Castillo

alfonso.castillo@newsday.com@alfonsoreports

Alfonso Castillo has been reporting for Newsday since 1999 and covering the transportation beat since 2008. He grew up in the Bronx and Queens and now lives in Valley Stream with his wife and two sons.