(The following article by Michael Cooper was posted on the New York Times website on January 7.)
NEW YORK — The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is slashing the fare for most weekend trips within New York City on the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North Railroad to $2.50, officials announced yesterday.
The new $2.50 fare will take effect this weekend in a six-month pilot program called CityTicket, officials said. It will save riders as much as $2.25 per ticket, and it will make rides on the commuter lines competitive with bus and subway rides.
“This is really the first time the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North have focused on serving the people in the city,” Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said yesterday while announcing the program at the Bayside Long Island Rail Road station. “Everybody thinks of both those railroads as suburban railroads.”
Peter S. Kalikow, the chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, said that the program would be evaluated over the next six months to determine how popular it is, how many riders it attracts, and whether it reduces congestion elsewhere.
As they made the announcement in the tiny waiting room of the Bayside station, which was packed with reporters and photographers and a few bemused commuters, the officials were interrupted twice by announcements that the rail road was running on time.
“Peter, was that staged?” Mayor Bloomberg asked Mr. Kalikow.
The $2.50 fare will be available for travel within city limits on Saturday and Sunday on the Long Island Rail Road and on the Hudson and Harlem lines of Metro-North. Riders will have to buy tickets, called CityTickets, before getting on the trains. More information on the program is available at www.mta.info.
Mayor Bloomberg had some suggestions for using the new service.
“If you are going to go to a Broadway show from Bayside, or you’re going to go see a Knicks game, this is one of the ways to do it,” the mayor said.