While NYC drivers have two more months until the city’s congestion pricing kicks in, straphangers have discounted rides in their future!
According to the MTA, transit officials will launch a 10% discount on all monthly tickets for LIRR and Metro-North trips that begin and end within the five boroughs as an attempt to incentivize drivers to switch to mass transit.
MTA Chair Janno Lieber stated:
So we’re discounting the monthly tickets for folks who ride from, you know, Woodlawn or Morris Park or, you know, other neighborhoods in the Bronx, Jamaica, Bayside, Douglaston. So that people can use the commuter rail system and save time.
The discounts, which are set to go into effect on July 1st, will be introduced as a one-year pilot program. Monthly commuter railroad tickets were also decreased 10% back in March 2022.
The cost of a monthly LIRR pass between Jamaica and Penn Station will drop $22, decreasing from $220 to $198. Monthly Metro-North passes between Grand Central Terminal and the northern Bronx will have a slightly less decrease, dropping $19.75 from $199.75 to $180.
Lisa Daglian, executive director of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA, stated:
Getting on board the rails, getting on board subways, getting on buses, getting on express buses is the way to travel. Nobody likes to sit in traffic. New York City has the best transit in the United States. It will save time, it will save money and it will help to save the environment and climate.
The discounts will be funded through New York state’s Outer Borough Transportation Account, a small transit fund established in 2019 which itself receives funding from surcharges on taxi and for-hire vehicle trips.