Figuring out Fares
In New York, the easiest and most affordable way to travel across the city is to take the subway, but it took me several months, if not more, to figure out if I was a pay-per-ride sort of person, or an unlimited-ride card straphanger. I considered that my regular routine required me to take the subway to and from work Monday through Friday, which meant about 40 rides a month, plus 10 or so other rides for the weekend or nights when I had other things to do. So, 50 rides multiplied by the $2.25 fare equaled $112.50—more than the 30-day unlimited pass, which cost $104.
So, the 30-Day unlimited ride card is what I should buy every month, right? Normally, yes, but then I forgot that the pay-per-ride card gives you a 7 percent bonus fare for every $10 you spend, so you get $10.70 for every $10 you spend. I’m counting pennies here, but, maybe I won’t be given this option anymore, because New York’s M.T.A. is considering eliminating the 7 percent bonus fare next year. I quickly checked to see if either Chicago, or D.C. offered a bonus fare, and it looks like those cities do not. As an unlimited card buyer, I won’t be affected—except for the amount of money I put on my emergency MetroCard pass. Yes, I keep a backup fare card, mostly to use for JFK Airport’s AirTran, which doesn’t accept the unlimited fare card, but also to use when I see those two terrible words just as a train is pulling up to the station: Insufficient Fare. You know how that can be.
You mean…instead of running down all three MetroCards in my bag until they have useless small amounts on them…I should keep one for train-based emergencies? This is so genius I can’t even comprehend how stupid I’ve been. I’m so terribly embarrassed right now!
@Poppy You can take those three cards and have the balances combined onto one. Just bring them to the MTA person sitting in the booth—they’ll do it in 10 seconds.
@Mike Dang Thank you! So much I still don’t know about the wonderful world of the subway.
@Poppy This site will also help you figure out how much you need to put on a card in order for the bonus to come out evenly, and avoid those random small amounts: http://www.metrocardbonuscalculator.com/
Just to further complicate the options: My workplace has a pre-tax flex spending account that you can use for transportation as a benefit. But: that money does not roll over year to year. So, I have $104 put in that account every month, and I need to make sure I time the purchase of my 30-day unlimited cards to use that money in full during the plan year. But when I was out of town a lot, I didn’t want to have a Metrocard being wasted. So I had to count out for the year: if I didn’t buy a new unlimited until after I got back from the trip, would I still use my $104 per month before the plan year ends?
@RachelG8489 That’s weird it doesn’t roll over. My company uses wageworks and I just have them send me an unlimited metrocard in the mail each month. I have a pre-paid debit card that I can add pre-tax funds into for bolt bus/airtrain/other city metros/etc.
@RachelG8489 you can buy unlimited metrocards and hold on to them. they don’t activate until the first time you swipe them.
(unless i’m not understanding your problem correctly? which i could be.)
I always weigh out the benefits of the weekly versus the monthly pass for the Boston T every month. Usually I get the weekly (used to be 15$/week, is now $18/week) but this month I got the monthly because my temp job is longterm and I’m not travelling at all. That used to be $64 and is now $70.
At my old job I got a subsidized monthly pass every month- 30 bucks! It was the greatest.
I normally get the monthly but ever since they upped it to $104, it stopped being a bargain if I was taking off any time at all during that month. This month, with all the Jewish holidays, I didn’t get one but honestly it might be worth the extra 10 bucks or whatever I’m saving just to get one because having a pay as you go card makes me so much more stressed out than usual.
After having not one, not two, but THREE monthly unlimited ride cards become unusable after a week or less (defective magnetic strips? Nice way to get people to spend more, MTA!), and dealing with extremely slow and irritating system by which the MTA doles out (partial, insufficent) refunds, I buy pay-as-you-go and keep as little on a card at a time as possible, so I’m not out over $100 for months.
This is why I’m glad Chicago is easy. It’s $2.25 to ride the train, $2.50 to ride the bus. A transfer (between train-train/train-bus/bus-train/bus-bus) within 2 hours is $0.25. Most train-train transfers are free. Train goes to both airports, no issues there.
I ride the train (no transfers) at least twice per day, 6 days a week. So that’s $4.50/day or $27/week. A monthly pass is $86 for unlimited rides and transfers. Kind of a no-brainer. And my job pays for it as a subsidy, no taxes at all on it.
@ImASadGiraffe I’ve lived in both Chicago and NYC, and always kept an unlimited monthly pass. The extra $10 I might save a month is worth it so I don’t have to deal with any inconvenience.
The one note of caution I would interject is that MetroCards can expire, so check the date on your emergency card and move it into your regular rotation if it’s getting stale…
Yeah, we don’t have that fare bonus for pay-per-ride in Toronto. We also don’t have cards but these terrible, terrible tiny coins that are super easy to lose. Plus if you like to stop off places and get back on, it’s way more economical to get a monthly pass, because you would have to pay the fare to get back on the bus or subway again. Basically if you find yourself going somewhere at least three times a week, it winds up being cheaper to get a pass. Especially if you want to actually do stuff on the weekends.
@Megano! Wait really?? I thought you had to use it for at least the five days commute + an extra usage every week to get your money’s worth!
(I’ve never factored in the tax credit though)
@redheaded&crazy I was only going to school 3-4 days a week and it was way cheaper for me to get a pass, cuz a) I could stop and get groceries on the way home if I wanted to, and b) I could actually run errands on the weekend or go out, which I couldn’t do when I was using tokens. Well I could, but I might as well have had a pass at what it was costing me. At least w/the student fare. I also live in a part of town where you kind of have to bus everywhere, so that was a factor too.
The biggest thing that throws me off nowadays is when my extended family is in town… I’ll always buy the unlimited pass, figuring we’ll be using it a lot while sight-seeing, but forgetting that they’re either scared of the subway or think that taking a cab from the UWS to Times Square at 6:30 pm is a great idea.
A dude I dated sent me a spreadsheet once that was set up to track how many rides you’d taken on the subway and see if you were getting your money’s worth. Dreamboat! (Not joking, I love data and spreadsheets and I told all my friends about it and we all swooned.)
@Anna Jayne@twitter I started buying a monthly pass (only for a certain route, you can’t get unlimited here) and I have been obsessively tracking how much I use it and how much I saved. In a little notepad, very low tech. But I would use that spreadsheet!
i just really wish they would convert to tap-style entrances. i haaaate swiping. it wastes so much time.
I recently learned that one can buy a 28-day unlimited pass for the DC Metro for $280. Rail only–it doesn’t even include bus fare! This is actually insane, unless you happen to commute from far-flung suburb to far-flung suburb seven days a week at rush hour or are staggeringly bad at math.
The DC metro used to have a bonus – this was in 2000, but I think it was 5% if you spent more than $50, maybe? So not great. And I don’t think there was an unlimited monthly option. I’m in Atlanta now, and have a discounted AND pre-tax monthly pass through work, but the rates here keep going up and up and up. Atlanta REALLY needs to move to distance-based fares, in my opinion.