MTA is raising the subway fares…again.

Every public agency in NYC is shitty. Forreal. Hipsters on food stamps buying fancy cheese at Whole Foods? Shitty. Innocent black people being stopped and harassed on a daily basis by the police? Shitty. The transit authority spending money on shit we don’t really care about and then raising the price of a Metrocard? Shitty.

A monthly MetroCard could cost you an extra $21 under one fare hike proposal reportedly under consideration by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

The transit agency is looking at four options for next year’s fare hike.

Under that first proposal, the price of a monthly MetroCard would rise to $125.

A weekly card would go up to $34 and the base fare would stay at $2.25, but the MTA would reduce the pay-per-ride bonus.

A second proposal would hike 30-day cards by $15 to $119, and a seven-day card would go up to $32.

The base fare would stay at $2.25 and the MTA would eliminate the pay-per-ride bonus.

Two other plans would raise the base fare to $2.50 while triggering other changes to the bonus and unlimited ride cards.

Each proposal is designed to generate an additional $232 million in revenue for the cash-strapped agency.

The agency will discuss the fare hike proposals during a public hearing set for next month.

(source)

Let me tell you what this cash-strapped agency is spending money on.

Little screens that say how may minutes until the next train comes.
Big screens that show where each train is on the line and whether it is stopped, moving, or being held.

It’s kind of convenient I guess. Like, if I’m about to catch the L from 1st Ave at 4 in the morning (drunk) and I see that the next train isn’t coming for another 20 minutes, I can go to Papaya and get a fish sammich and some fries. But that is literally the only station I can think of where that’s possible (oh, and 34th Street Penn Station, but who the hell takes the train from there?) because you can’t see the time ticker without paying and going through the turnstile. So if it’s 20 minutes, it’s just 20 minutes. and I gotta wait 20 minutes. That screen the MTA is spending money on is not affecting my life whatsover 90% of the time I take the subway.

And for this, I gotta suffer a fare hike.

If I gotta pay more, this is what I want:

Trains that come on time. All the time. It’s possible. Japan’s transit is so reliable, if you tell your boss the train made you late, you have to get a note from the transit authority. Because them shits is never late.
Trains that have reliable air conditioning. Or, better yet, train cars that don’t mysteriously turn the heat on in the middle of a hot ass August day.
Announcements that you can understand. If I’m on a local train that’s about to suddenly become express and skip 30 blocks (including my stop) I would love for that information to be delivered to me by someone who doesn’t sound like Charlie Brown’s teacher.
Service bulletins OUTSIDE of the station that there is no train there. Because when I wanna take the F train uptown and I find out it’s not running and the E is taking its place, I want that know that information before I swipe my card and I’m waiting on the platform.

These are things that will actually affect my daily life. If the MTA was cash-strapped because of logical improvements, I would be all for a fare hike. But y’all ain’t got no money cause y’all are too busy brokering backroom deals with electronics companies to make shit don’t nobody want!

Get your life together.