Staten Islanders reacted strongly to the highest percentage fare increase identified last week among likely "gap closing" actions the MTA will take to balance its 2005 budget. The 50% hike in the NYC Transit express bus fare, from $4 to $6 one-way, coming after last year’s $1 (33%) hike would mean a doubling of express bus fares in two years.

Express buses have been a fast-growing segment of NYC transit ridership since the mid-1990s. A reduction in the fare from $4 to $3 in 1998 helped fuel the trend, as did rapid population growth on Staten Island, which contributes about three-quarters of NYC express bus riders.

The doubling of the fare is likely to end this growth, if not to absolutely curtail express bus use in the city. The MTA has long complained that express bus services are its most heavily subsidized, and says the huge fare increase will allow it to generate $19 million toward the $436 million budget gap the agency would face if it took no remedial actions. MTA executive director Katherine Lapp was cited in the Advance stating that without the big fare increase, the agency would "largely eliminate" express bus service.

One of the major drawbacks to NYC of having transportation policy in a multitude of hands is that the consequences of certain policy actions are often left to others to address. The MTA management is hostile to express bus service from a bean-counter perspective that weighs all service to all riders according to one scale. However, the context of express bus riding in New York City is that many of those likely to abandon express buses are car owners from a fast growing, traffic-choked borough with no access to rapid rail service. Is repelling would-be transit riders in this situation in the best interests of the city and the region? 

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