It’s snowing in the New York City region, which means we’re seeing tweets like this:
Even on days without “significant weather events”, it’s common to see tweets like this:
Those of you outside the New York City area may be wondering, what is “cross-honoring”? Cross-honoring means that because of a significant service disruption on one transit system another transit system providing approximately parallel service will honor passengers’ tickets for the interrupted service. So, earlier today, when the New York City Subway’s 7 train was interrupted, passengers going from, say, Flushing, Queens—where the Flushing-Main St subway station is about a block away from the Long Island Rail Road’s Flushing-Main St station—to Manhattan could use their MetroCards to ride the LIRR instead.
That’s considerate of the agencies, right? I suppose that’s one way to look at it.
But here’s the thing: the New York City Subway and the LIRR are part of the same agency, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Over in New Jersey, mentioned in the tweet above, the rail, light-rail, and bus systems that are cross-honoring each other’s fares are all part of the same, statewide transit agency, New Jersey Transit.
So, my question is, why don’t they cross-honor each other fares to begin with? As in, all the time, regardless of the weather or service disruptions?
I know, I know: the various systems—the regional railroads, the subway, the light-rail lines, and buses—tend to serve different groups of users in different geographic locations, often with different socio-economic backgrounds and levels of income. It is arguable that a commuter from a wealthier community on Long Island should have to pay more for a trip through Queens than a lower-income New York City resident.
I know, too, that the systems were, at one time, completely separate companies, and that the political and financial deals that brought them together preserved various and separate streams of revenue for them.
What I’m saying is that maybe now is the time to have a conversation on whether that should end.
After all, the New York City Subway was once three separate companies, one owned by the City of New York, the other two in private hands. It gets even more complex when you consider that various sections of what is now the subway, particularly in Brooklyn, were once owned by separate, private railroads and only later absorbed into the IRT, BMT, or IND and then merged into the subway. And even after consolidation of the city’s rapid-transit systems, at one time riders to and from the Rockaways had to pay an additional, premium fare. But that was all eventually swept away and a single, unified fare structure adopted for the New York City Subway and local buses (which are still technically operated by three separate MTA entities: New York City Transit, the Manhattan and Bronx Surface Transit Operating Authority or MaBSTOA, and the MTA Bus Company).
More importantly, it’s increasingly how New York’s peer cities—and economic competitors—do things. Case in point: Paris. On my recent trip there I paid a visit to Versailles. To get to Versailles from my hotel near the Eiffel Tower, I took the RER’s line C (French) to one of its termini at Versailles Rive Gauche. My walk through the estate and back into town took me past Versailles Rive Droite, a terminus for the Transilien‘s line L (French). At La Défense, I transferred to RER line A. Eventually, I took the métro using the same ticket. It didn’t matter that RER C or Transilien L are operated by the national railway company, the SNCF, and that RER A and the métro are operated by the Paris region’s transit authority, the RATP. It also didn’t matter that the métro is a different mode from the RER or the Transilien; I could have taken a bus or a trolley using the same ticket.
See, the Paris region, called the Île-de-France, is divided into zones. Daily, weekly, and monthly passes are issued for a certain combination of zones; with some exceptions, such as airport and river services, a rider can use any public transit within the zones indicated on the pass. The operator or the mode doesn’t matter. As the website for Hourtoule, an operator of local buses in the city of Versailles, explains, “Comme tous les réseaux de transport publics d’Ile de France, Cars HOURTOULE appliquent la gamme tarifaire définie par le STIF.” In other words, “As all public transit networks in the Paris region, Hourtoule buses use the fare structure defined by the STIF.” (STIF stands for Syndicat des transports d’Île-de-France. It coordinates transportation throughout the Paris region as well as a unified fare structure. A brochure, available in PDF in French, explains how the fare structure works. A webpage in English explains the many ticket types available.)
Here in New York, I can’t even get from Brooklyn to Jersey City with a single fare (though I can use a pay-per-ride MetroCard the entire way) or from my corner of Long Island to the rest of Long Island using a single ticket.
The Paris region has figured out how to make riding transit across the Île-de-France virtually seamless. No matter the mode, no matter the operator, a single ticket will get you from Rambouillet in the southwest to Charles de Gaulle Airport in the northeast, or from Cergy in the northwest to Montereau in the southeast, and for a relatively low fare.
It’s time to make that happen in the New York City region as well.
Dustin Tyler Joyce 