We've all seen the news about the recent M.T.A fare hikes that are supposed to take place in March. Yet we as New Yorker's see no reason why they're raising the fare. We see fare hike and then we automatically think about how "shitty" the current service is and what an inconvenience it can be to us at times. What we don't see is all the improvements to our current subway system consistently going on all the time.
One of the biggest questions we as M.T.A users ask is where is all that extra money going to? Granted that is a fair question because all we see is the daily inconveniences and the price of using this means of transportation going up. Well, it's actually quite an easy answer to this question if you just opened your eyes and looked around. Just in 2016 alone many subways received upgrades and a couple new ones were open and these aren't cheap at all. The Oculus alone which opened in march of 2016 cost around 4 billion dollars alone (that's the all white train station in lower Manhattan which connects path trains to the NYC system). In addition to that cost, heavy structure Penn station received multiple upgrades and is still to this day receiving multiple upgrades including new terminals and waiting areas (I'd know I worked part time in Penn station renovating said terminals).
According to news reports, they say this fare hike can ultimately upwards of 200 million in the upcoming year. As I stated before that money should be used to open new train stations and give old ones upgrades. Which we can all agree on that is desperately needed because the last thing we want is constant delays with multiple trains using the same tracks. Another thing I think we don't do enough is give the M.T.A the credit they deserve because they always seem to fix a major problem in a couple of days even of that means the train we want isn't running on the weekends from the hours of 11pm-5am.
All in all this fare hike while it may seem like a bad thing can be a good thing in the long run. See there are always consistent delays happening to our subway system and that's something that's always going to happen. After all, NYC is one of the largest cities in the world with over 8 million people living here. Something is bound to happen whether it be people subway surfing and getting hurt, homeless people living in the subways, signal problems, or even people throwing trash on the tracks to start a track fire. The problem always seems to get solved in a matter of days so it's not such a bad thing. After all, we do have the most reliable subway system in the U.S. and even if we don't realize it, it is something to be proud of to always have trains running no matter the hour of day.
