Pedro Valdez-Rivera lives with his seven family members and two dogs in a Bedford-Stuyvesant NYCHA apartment. “My siblings are working but they have minimum wage jobs. Me and my mother are disabled,” Valdez-Rivera told Gothamist. “We have a very, very, tight budget.”
The 27-year-old said he was “ecstatic” when he received his Fair Fares MetroCard a few months ago, which allows him to purchase half-priced subway and bus rides—$60.50 for a 30-day card, and $16 for a 7-day card. Valdez-Rivera is one of 76,021 New Yorkers who have enrolled in the program since it began earlier this year.
Valdez-Rivera said that since he can save money on subway fare, his family can shift resources towards groceries, medicine, and the internet bill. He says his household’s expenses amount to around $4,000/month, hovering near the federal poverty line for a family of eight.
“We’re starting to become more financially comfortable and financially stable,” he said. “We see the Fair Fares card as a key to more opportunities to improve our way of life in one of the most expensive cities in the world.”
After an abysmal rollout, the Riders Alliance, a transit advocacy group, says the city’s Fair Fares program is on target to begin enrolling all New Yorkers who live at or below the federal poverty line in January of 2020 (there are around 750,000 of them). The group has just issued a survey for recipients and potential Fair Fares recipients to evaluate how the initiative is working so far, and to take suggestions for improvements.
Right now, Fair Fares is available to some 130,000 low-income New Yorkers who are employed, receive SNAP or cash assistance, and don’t receive any other reduced-fare benefit. Some CUNY students, veteran students, and NYCHA residents are also eligible as of this fall.
While other reduced fare programs, such as Seattle’s, target individuals above the poverty line, New York’s currently does not. Mayor de Blasio and City Council Speaker Corey Johnson agreed to allocate $106 million to pay for the program in the first year. "Funding for further expansion of the Fair Fares program will be subject to budget discussions," a City Hall press release from May stated.
The Mayor’s Office did not immediately respond to a question about whether Mayor Bill de Blasio would support expanding the program to other low income New Yorkers.
“Not only do we want to see the program become a success, we would look forward to an expansion, for sure,” said Rebecca Bailin, the political director for the Riders Alliance.
Pedro Valdez-Rivera, Fair Fares recipient.
Meanwhile, the MTA’s plan to add 500 new police officers to address farebeating and “quality of life” issues in the subway is estimated to cost around $663 million over a ten-year period. The plan to add new officers came after Governor Andrew Cuomo repeatedly criticized the agency.
“Instead of spending all that money on all that advertising and all those police officers in the station to combat fare evasion, why not invest it in the program that will help people be able to access public transportation?” said Mike Gonzalez, a Fair Fares recipient from Astoria.
Gonzalez said that his wife and two children live off of around $2,500/month, and that his Fair Fares card allows him to get to his job as a porter in Brooklyn without “having to worry about stressing out the end of the month” when the bills are due.
“It sometimes came down to deciding whether or not I was gonna run the risk of hopping the turnstile or hoping that someone would be kind enough to swipe me on the train if I didn’t have the fare to pay to get on,” Gonzalez said. “This is just a no-brainer. People need to get places around the city, let’s help people do that.”
In response to a question about whether Governor Cuomo would support allocating more money to help low income New Yorkers pay for their transportation, a spokesperson for the governor's office replied, "Preventing fare evasion—which is leading to hundreds of millions in lost revenue—and the city-funded program that provides fares to low income New Yorkers are two important but completely separate issues, both of which are part of creating a better transit system for all riders."
Valdez-Rivera, who is also a member of the Riders Alliance, acknowledged that “Fair Faires is not a magic pill to help hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers to get through the tough times of poverty and all other economic challenges of the city.”
“But it gives them more opportunities to get back on their feet and to become more stable. It’s not just a socioeconomic issue, it’s a human rights issue.”
