(Newsday posted the following Associated Press article by Karen Matthews on its website on April 4.)
NEW YORK — Straphangers grumbled but forked over the extra 50 cents as a fare increase went into effect for more than 7 million bus and subway riders Sunday.
The one-way fare went from $1.50 to $2 at 12:01 a.m., surviving a court challenge by a commuters’ group that accused the nation’s largest transit agency of mismanaging its books.
“Two dollars? Oh my God, that’s crazy,” said Michael Florio, a former New Yorker visiting his family from Gainesville, Fla. “I paid a quarter for my first subway token in the 1960s.”
Evelyn Phimester, a temporary office worker, said she will now hesitate to take the subway into Manhattan on days she doesn’t have to.
“It does make a difference,” she said.
But other riders seemed resigned to the change.
“I’d rather they not raise it,” said financial analyst Dan Field. “But I understand prices do go up. Eventually they have to.”
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority approved the increases for buses, subways, commuter rail lines and bridges and tunnels in March, saying it needed the money to close a deficit of nearly $1 billion. The agency at one point had projected a deficit of $2.8 billion.
But two reports issued last month by the city and state comptrollers charged that the MTA disguised more than $500 million in surplus to make its finances appear worse to the public.
The Straphangers’ Campaign, a transit watchdog group, sued last week to try and block the increase, arguing that millions of commuters would be irreparably harmed.
A Manhattan judge refused to block the increase after MTA lawyers argued that reprogramming 12,000 pieces of equipment, including all 4,500 city buses, to accept the old fare would be a logistical nightmare. The MTA also said it would lose $1.2 million a day in revenue to a delayed fare hike.
But Manhattan state Supreme Court Justice Louis York scheduled a hearing this Friday to hear evidence on the matter, and said he may then roll back the increases.
MTA officials, including chairman Peter Kalikow, have said the agency explained its financial situation poorly but didn’t deliberately hide information. They said the 33.3 percent fare increase would have been higher in 2004, perhaps twice as much, if it had been delayed.
New York City Transit spokeswoman Marisa Baldeo said implementing the fare increase went smoothly Sunday but said the real test would come during Monday morning’s rush hour.
At the busy Times Square station, agents patiently explained the fare increase to riders, some of whom were puzzled that they had to add 50 cents to MetroCards with $1.50 left on them.
The MTA has said the average fare would be considerably less than $2 because of the discounted fare cards available. Those prices also went up Sunday. An unlimited one-day pass went from $4 to $7, while a monthly pass rose from $63 to $70.
Average 25 percent fare increases went into effect Thursday for 400,000 suburban commuters on Metro-North and Long Island Rail Road trains. Bridge and tunnel toll increases take effect May 18.