Phase Out of Free Student Metro Cards to Hurt Local Parents Pocketbooks

At $88 / month the cost of metro cards is not cheap but from past analysis my wife and I still get a pretty good deal. With the added possibility of having to buy two more such cards for our kids if the MTA does away with student metro cards I am not so sure without running the numbers again. As expected our usage brinigs the costs down but spending $350 plus on metro cards is nuts.

$2.50 Fare Card = $170 Break Even Monthly Card for these Roosevelt Island Parents

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With the likelihood of a $2.50 base fare card and a monthly card at $103 it was time to again determine what the break even for a Roosevelt Island couple that incurs 6 fares per day on the MTA would be. My wife and I incur approximately 136 fares /month which with a $81 monthly card averages out to $1.19/fare.

Based on the below analysis my break even goes from $136/month at $2/fare to now a whopping $170 per monthly fare card if the full fare is as expected raised to $2.50/ride. This is actually a reduction from a $204/month break even if the fare jumped to $3.00/ride.

The Proposed Fare Hike Revisions and a Roosevelt Island Family of Four

Upon reading in today’s New York Times about the current revisions to the fare hike proposals I went back to my September 25, 2007 post where I concluded it still made sense to buy two unlimited monthly Metro Cards at $86 / card as opposed to buying single trip cards and trying to take advantage of the off peak discounted fares proposed at that time.

Certainly my computations below show that a monthly Metro Card still makes sense taking into account the revised plan for a $81 cost for a monthly unlimited fare card. With the proposed rate hike decreasing $5 I would have been shocked if all of sudden the monthly card was not better than other combinations of weekly cards.

With one child now over 5 years old I also should take into account the “pay-per-ride” card I now need to buy for that child when he travels during non school hours or on weekends as his school issued Metro Card is not applicable for those times. The added trips could not save us with the added discounts the the savings already achieved with the monthly cards.

To be honest I believe I have underestimated the number of trips we make a week as this schedule does not take into account weekend usage and other miscellaneous events like Mom and Dad if they are lucky getting a night out and off the Island.