New Pay-Per-Ride Metro Cards will cost you a dollar starting March 3rd. However, you can avoid this fee by reusing your old Metro Card simply by adding money to the card. A new card will be issued to you free of charge if your old card is expiring or damaged. I wouldn't mind if the cards could stand up to the abuse but the Metro Cards the MTA uses are disposable and are not meant for repeated use. At the present time I can and do refill my card at most 5 times before I buy a new one (at most around 40 rides per each card). This will affect a lot of people who scrape together the change needed to get in and out of work in the City, and is a de facto tax raised by the MTA on the poor people of New York City (People who use wage works will not be affected.)
In 2003, the year the NYC subway token was phased out and the fare to ride the subway was raised $2.00. In that same year the State and City comptrollers charged the MTA with hiding almost a billion dollars from its books to justify the fare hike.
I would like the MTA to give me the option to buy a subway card that is designed for daily use and not disposable like the one they use today. Why do I have to fork over another dollar when my card doesn't work. How many times have you refilled your card in the Metro Card Vending Machine only to find out that it doesn't work? What happens then is you eat the money. Because the whole process to get your money back is designed to be such a pain in the ass you'll give up. So when this happens again do I have to convince the booth operator that my card is damaged so I can pay for the rides without the surcharge? Or do I have to mail my card to Albany for my dollar? Welcome to living in NYC and oh yeah when is the subway fare going up again? What exactly is the MTA doing with all this cash?
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