(The following article by Joie Tyrrell was posted on the Newsday website on February 28.)
NEW YORK — In the eight years he has been commuting from Hicksville, attorney Ira Checkla has watched his monthly Long Island Rail Road ticket climb from $154 to $192.
The increase exceeded inflation, which would have driven the price of Checkla’s ticket to $185 over those eight years.
But, come Tuesday, it will rise above $200 — $203 to be exact.
“Now, we are getting hit again,” Checkla said. “It doesn’t seem like anybody is minding the store. The quickest way to patch any deficiencies is to raise fares.”
Starting Tuesday, most LIRR fares increase an average of 5 percent to 7 percent, with some prices jumping in the double digits as the Metropolitan Transportation Authority raises fares for the second time since 2003. Today, monthly MetroCards rise from $70 to $76, weekly cards increase from $21 to $24 and express bus fares go from $4 to $5. Tolls on most MTA tunnels and bridges will rise by 50 cents beginning March 13.
The 2005 LIRR budget also calls for fewer train and station cleaning crews as well as maintenance cutbacks. Eleven ticket windows Islandwide will close on weekends and some weekend service will be cut on the Babylon line and two rush-hour trains traveling between Hempstead and Flatbush Avenue will be eliminated.
Also, the penalty for purchasing an on-board ticket will rise from $3 to $5.
It’s enough to prompt some commuters to rethink the way they get to work.
“That’s the end of that, I’ll drive,” said Helen DiMauro, a bank employee who commutes from Ronkonkoma to Hicksville on the LIRR and parks in a lot that soon will charge $4 a day. “It’s insane. Do you ever just feel that people have you head to hand and you work for nothing?”
Ridership on the railroad has dropped since the last fare increase and hasn’t recovered. Rush-hour ridership reached 49.6 million in 2003, but fell to 48.1 million last year.
“They are taking their cars,” said Lisa Tyson, director of the Long Island Progressive Coalition. “There comes a certain time when it is so much more expensive to take the train than to drive, that people don’t have that option anymore.”
While monthly ticket prices, the bulk of the ridership, will rise 5 percent to 7 percent, one-way off-peak tickets to and from Penn Station will rise between 5 percent and 15 percent, 10-trip off-peak tickets will rise between 4 percent and 15 percent and riders who purchase joint MetroCards and monthly LIRR tickets will face increases of between 9 percent and 11 percent.
“The concern is we will get the price to the point where they won’t take mass transit and that is a great concern. Less people will be using it and going on the roads and that is not a good combination,” said Mitch Pally, vice president for government affairs at the Long Island Association, the region’s largest business group, adding that Long Island’s economy continues to draw workers from the city as more jobs are created here.
MTA officials declined comment, but the authority faces a $607-million deficit next year and officials have said another fare hike may be in store for 2007.
Also, the scrapping of three branches — Oyster Bay, West Hempstead and Ronkonkoma to Greenport — is still a possibility. An MTA spokesman said last week that an existing $200-million stabilization account could be used to avoid the closures.
Commuter Keith Franceschiello, a Locust Valley resident who has been taking the LIRR for 25 years, called the railroad a “monopoly” that can do what it wants.
“It is just becoming too expensive for regular folk who commute into the city,” he said. “If there was any type of competition, the LIRR would have to do something. They would have to be far more competitive, but they don’t have to be.”