By Radwan Farraj
More than 270,000 New York residents have received half-fare MetroCards as a part of the city’s Fair Fares Program, which began in early 2019 with the help of Mayor Bill de Blasio. NYPIRG’s upcoming event on Thursday, Apr. 7 will teach BC students how they can apply to Fair Fares and how NYPIRG plans to campaign for increased student accessibility to the program.
“This is a part of the NYPIRG Straphangers Campaign… our goal is to essentially make transportation easier for students in general,” said David Dugue, a project leader for NYPIRG. The Straphangers Campaign is NYPIRG’s central campaign for working towards better city transit and has been active for the last four decades.
Goals for the campaign include creating 30 miles of new bus lanes, improving entry onto buses with the use of the city’s fare paying system OMNY, and advocating for bus improvements in city budgets, according to Dugue.
“We’re advocating for holding the mayor accountable for saying he supports the MTA,” said Dugue. “We’re trying to hold him accountable for students to have better transportation.”
To be eligible for the Fair Fares program, the city requires that applicants live below the federal poverty line, which lies at $26,500 for a family of four.
“NYPIRG was part of the original effort to implement Fair Fares in 2019. Students were out there rallying and lobbying their elected officials,” said Shelli Cohen, a project coordinator for NYPIRG’s BC chapter. “Nearly half of CUNY undergraduates come from families whose annual income is less than $20,000.”
For some students and New Yorkers, there are different financial constraints that factor into their inability to pay for full fare.
“It’s not really fair for New York City workers because we probably make more money than the average state, but the cost of living is so much more,” explained Dugue. “It’s just not fair to students and riders in general.”
In preparation for the event, NYPIRG Project Leader Joe Scarpetta went through the Fair Fares application process to better understand what it was like.
“When it started [Fair Fares] in 2019, only 30,000 people were initially eligible for the program. And then they expanded that to 200,000,” stated Scarpetta. “So now our next effort is to get that increase even more by changing the eligibility requirement.”
NYPIRG’s goal to change eligibility requirements would be met if the requirement is changed to accept those with incomes that are 200% of the current federal poverty level for a family of four, or $53,000.
“Expanding the Fair Fares program eligibility from 100% to 200% of the federal poverty level would greatly benefit low-income students,” said Cohen.