The MTA plans to create new discounts on fares for Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North trips that start and end within the five boroughs — and the deal will come online as the agency rolls out a congestion pricing program in Manhattan.
The MTA Board of Directors on Tuesday is scheduled to approve a 10% discount on monthly tickets for inner-city fare zones. The deal will reduce the cost of a monthly LIRR pass between Jamaica and Penn Station from $220 to $198. Monthly Metro-North trips between Grand Central Station and the North Bronx will drop from $199.75 to $180.
The discounts are offered as a one-year trial program. Transportation officials plan to take effect July 1, the day after the MTA announced it would launch congestion pricing fees.
MTA spokesman Aaron Donovan said the agency already discounted all monthly commuter rail passes by 10% in March 2022, and that the new proposed cuts would amount to an additional 10% reduction for riders.
The MTA also raised commuter rail fares by about 4% last year.
MTA officials expect some riders will switch from cars to mass transit once congestion fares begin charging a $15 daytime fee to enter Manhattan below 60th Street.
“Riding the rail, riding the subway, riding the buses, riding the express buses is the way to travel. No one likes sitting in traffic,” said Lisa Daghlian, executive director of the MTA’s Citizens Advisory Committee. New York has the best transportation in the United States. It will save time, save money, and help save the environment and climate.
The rebates will be funded through the New York State Transit External Account, a small transit fund created in 2019 when the congestion pricing law was signed into law.
Gov. Kathy Hochul and state lawmakers earlier this year tapped more than $20 million from the fund to give new rebates to Queens and Bronx drivers on some MTA bridges.
MTA officials did not provide an estimate of how much the new fare reductions would cost.
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