Will MTA Hike Rates Affect Commuter Behavior?

A train pulling into the Ossining, NY Metro North Train Station. Photo credit: USA Today.

Yesterday I mentioned that it is the Golden Age for mass transit use in the United States today, as 2008 set a record for the most people using mass transit. At present in the New York Metro region there is a proposal by the MTA to increase fares on commuter train lines by up to 33%. Every day the governor and state legislature play political hardball with the MTA, it becomes more and more likely that the proposed fare hikes will become reality. The question is how will these fare hikes affect the behavior of commuters? Will air quality suffer as a result of these fare hikes?

To answer this it’s useful to know, how does New York’s commuter train lines compare to other Metropolitan train lines in terms of expense? To calculate this I looked at how expensive it would be to ride the train from the central station to the terminal station on each line during rush hour and then divided this number by the total number of miles traveled by rail. The distance travel was estimated by google maps on a few train lines, numbers in red in the tables below represent estimated quantities. One could alternatively calculate the ratio at the first station serviced, midpoint or an average of all the stations serviced, but in this analysis the terminal station for each line was used.



Table 1. Comparison of New York Metro region train line cost per mile. The top group is the Long Island Railroad, the second ground is Metro North and the last group represents New Jersey Transit.

The Long Island Railroad cost an average of 22 cents per mile traveled, or 25 cents per mile traveled if you exclude the Montauk Branch. New Jersey Transit also averaged 22 cents per mile traveled, including the two branches that serve Rockland and Orange Counties in New York. Metro North, which serves the Hudson Valley and Connecticut averaged 27 cents per mile, the highest rate in the Metropolitan Region.

These rates are less than what the IRS considers to be the rate to operate a motor vehicle of 55 cents per mile, thus offering an economic incentive to use mass transit. However trains are often less convenient than an automobile it terms of scheduling and comfort, so the economic incentives must outweigh the comfort costs of using a personal vehicle to remain competitive. Assuming the MTA raises fares the projected 33%, the regional trains would now cost 29 cents per mile (LIRR or 33 cents excluding the Montauk line), 29 cents per mile (NJ Transit) and 36 cents per mile (Metro North). Given the falling cost of operating a vehicle due to declines in gasoline prices, will taking mass transit still be an attractive choice for commuters?

How would these rates compare to other metropolitan regions? The commuter lines in Boston average 20 cents per mile and in the Baltimore – DC – Northern VA corridor the average cost is 23 cents per mile (see the table below). As it stands the New York Metro regions cost of 24 cents per mile places it as the most expensive, but very close in cost to its neighbors. Given a 33% increase in fares across the board, New York would cost on average about 33 cents per mile, which is nearly 50% more expensive as other metropolitan regions.



Table 2. As per table 1, but here the top group are the commuter lines in Boston and the bottom group are the commuter lines in the DC-Baltimore-VA Metro Region.

This large increase in fares, coupled with declining gas prices will lead to additional motorists using the roadways to get to work each day. These additional drivers will congest an already taxed roadway system, leading to increased emissions of carbon dioxide as well as ozone forming pollutants. The increases in commuter fares are a direct threat to air quality in the New York Metropolitan region.