MTA proposes strapping straphangers with $1 'green fee' on each new MetroCard
A new MetroCard could soon cost a buck more — and that’s
before you even put any money on it.
Under an MTA proposal, straphangers would be forced to
pay a $1 “green fee” on each new MetroCard they buy.
The Earth-friendly, wallet-hostile proposal appears in
the MTA’s preliminary budget for next year.
The goal is to reduce the amount of MetroCards that are
printed, discarded and hauled to the landfill, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority
said.
But the surcharge also will reap the MTA plenty of dough
— an estimated $20 million a year, according to the budget. Straphangers were
not pleased.
“It seems they’re trying to find anyway they can to get
more money out of us,” said Quiana Neal, 25, of Brooklyn after buying a
MetroCard at the Whitehall St. station in lower Manhattan.
Kathy Green, 51, of Queens, agreed.
“It’s called ‘nickel and diming,’" Green said.
Tourists unfamiliar with the rule would get hit the
hardest, Green predicted. Regular straphangers will be “forced” to recycle
their MetroCards, she said.
“If you’re hitting people in the pocket, you’re going to
make them do something,” Green, a training and technology consultant, said.
The MTA on average prints and encodes 160 million
MetroCards a year at a cost of approximately $9.5 million, agency spokesman
Adam Lisberg said.
The surcharge will generate an estimated $18 million in
revenue while printing fewer MetroCards will save another $2 million or so,
according to the MTA.
“We want people to use fewer MetroCards,” Lisberg said.
“It’s good for the environment and will reduce litter in our stations. Everyone
has had the experience of walking into a station and seeing MetroCards
littering the ground. If it costs $1 to replace your card, you won’t see that
anymore.”
The Straphangers Campaign is on board with the plan.
"We think the $1 charge for new MetroCards will
encourage riders to reuse their cards,” said campaign spokesman Gene Russianoff.
The MTA board approved the MetroCard surcharge during the
2010 budget crisis when the authority also slashed service. It was not
implemented last year — and its fate is uncertain this year, too.
Straphangers can avoid the surcharge. A newly purchased
MetroCard usually doesn’t expire for about 12 months. And until that expiration
date, a MetroCard — including unlimited-ride weekly and monthly MetroCards —
can be repeatedly refilled.
And the surcharge would not be imposed when a rider with
an expired MetroCard is buying a new MetroCard, Lisberg said.
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