Like many plans this one started off with a noble idea: reduce the cost of public transit for low income New Yorkers. The implementation of the plan though has been botched from the start and now the initial deadline of January 1, 2019 for the initial rollout has been missed and Mayor de Blasio is starting to catch heat for the the size, how to pay for it and what types of passes people will get.
Many are pointing to the Seattle low income public transit initiative, which gives a new class of card to low income riders and pays for it by a rise in fares on all other commuters.
However there are a number of reasons to be cautious and not directly compare this to the Seattle program. The first is the shear size. Any other current or proposed plan in the US would be tiny in size compared to the one proposed in NYC. Almost 800,000 riders could qualify for the program. This is under the assumption that those who qualify must make less than the federal poverty limit which is about $25,000 a year for a family of four. This would be put in place on a scale far greater than any other program in the country.
Estimates of its cost have been estimated to be as much as $250 million annually and the city has only promised $100 million for the first 6 months of the program. De Blasio had touted a tax on millionaires as a way to pay for the plan but this would have required the state assembly to raise taxes and the previously Republican controlled assembly was in no mood to do so. Where the rest would come from other than more taxes is so far a mystery.
Additionally, the types of passes that can be bought vary. There exist unlimited daily, weekly and monthly passes as well as pay per ride. So far the unlimited ride passes are easier to approach from a simple discount standpoint with an ID but there is still no policy on the pay per ride.
Fraud is one of my main concerns for this program. The city currently has a reduced fare program for senior citizens which requires a name and photo on the actual card. This is rarely if ever checked once it is received though and is likely causing the issues with the pay per ride card. If a person has approval to buy a pay per ride card there may be very little to stop that same person from buying pay per ride cards half price, selling them at a discount to the full price and pocketing the difference. In that sense it would end up just being a giveaway price wise not just to the poor but to the middle class, rich or anyone well connected enough to take advantage. I pointed out in a previous article, the housing system in New York is rife with examples of abuse and give aways to the middle class and rich like this.
Additionally the housing system can be easily manipulated by showing previous or current income which may have no correlation with potential income and the same will likely apply here. If a CEO is unemployed for a year, do you count his last W2 or should you look at his net worth? Currently the last 2 years income is the standard in NYC. A feature often abused by those with a large amount of liquid assets.
Don’t expect to see this rolled out well and be implemented well in the near future. Time will tell if the local government can turn it around.
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