How Progressive: NYC Mulls ‘Green Fee’ for Subway Riders
- Posted on July 27, 2012 at 4:26pm by
Becket Adams
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The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is considering adding on a “green fee” on each new MetroCard to encourage riders to recycle their cards.
The proposal for the $1 surcharge was contained in the agency’s preliminary budget for next year.
The aim is to reduce the number of cards that are printed and discarded. The surcharge would produce about $18 million a year for the MTA.
Watch the My Fox New York update:
TA spokesman Adam Lisberg told the Daily News that the agency prints and encodes an average of 160 million MetroCards a year at a cost of about $9.5 million. Printing fewer cards will save the MTA about $2 million.
He said printing fewer cards will reduce litter in the subway system and help the environment.
“This isn’t the first time the cash-strapped MTA has proposed this fee. In 2010, the mass transit agency considered a $1 surcharge on new MetroCards to help close an $800 million budget shortfall,” My Fox NY reports.
The Straphangers Campaign has endorsed the plan.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Comments (60)
rgalunas
Posted on July 28, 2012 at 9:21amA most disturbing thing I saw this week. An MTA queens bus dispatcher sitting in her new Mercedes SUV soaking in the air conditioning looking like a big shot doing nothing. If you’re a rider and have a question or a complaint and speak to them, they come across as some of rudest people you will ever meet! And they want more of my money please they don’t deserve what they get to begin with. Sorry MTA shame on you!
Report Post »wakewiseone
Posted on July 28, 2012 at 8:47amanother dumbmass government idea…………
gonna charge $1 per card green fee which will produce $18 million in revenue and it will reduce cost by $2 million.
no………..its not a green fee……………ITS A REVENUE ENHANCER !!!!
do you people at mta really think the public is that stoopid???
Report Post »yooperjo
Posted on July 28, 2012 at 2:55pmI think your spelling reflects your stupidity.
Report Post »josh345
Posted on July 29, 2012 at 8:44amClearly at least some of the public is “stoopid”
Report Post »Eblaze44
Posted on July 29, 2012 at 9:51pmY’all live and work in NYC – what do you think ‘we’ think?
Report Post »Meyvn
Posted on July 28, 2012 at 8:20amThey somehow think this “Green Fee” makes us all feel good inside. Sick-O-Fees!
Report Post »jacklance
Posted on August 2, 2012 at 1:18amWhat else we expect from obama presidentship:
Report Post »http://www.bergenrefrigeration.com/
Imprimatur
Posted on July 28, 2012 at 3:48amAh yes just like any program where people aren’t prudent enough to look and think beyond stage one the can is already hitting the wall. As long as the constituency keeps buying the lies the politicians keep selling this will always be the end game. Subsidies to programs that cannot sustain themselves will eventually run out of money and the politicians who passed those laws are no longer there to be held accounatble. They’re either retired or in higher office to screw over folks at the national level. User pay should always be the rule hence they carry all the burden of what they benefit from instead of bilking everybody else through politicians who pander to the “working class” beacuse of calls for compassion and general welfare. An $18M revenue versus a $800M deficit will make a 0.0225 of a difference. Doesn’t take a math PhD to see the futility of this dog and pony show. What is the true cost of all these (dis)services? The (private property theft) subsidies? The real charge that users should be paying? What other unsustainable “general welfare” program is bannered for institutionallized theft that entrench the politicians and play the constituency like a fiddle? Those who are too busy to see what strings are continuously attached to them will fail to recognize when the puppet masters already control their lives. Our liberty is the currency that the politicians take from use to create the illusion of benevolence for their own advancement. Wake up Neo…
Report Post »garylee123
Posted on July 28, 2012 at 8:36pmThey need to learn the california accounting tricks and learn to hide OUR money better from US.
Report Post »Red Barr 13
Posted on July 28, 2012 at 12:17amWhat will the city do about the rats on the tracks at Penn Station?
Report Post »Red Barr 13
Posted on July 28, 2012 at 12:16amWhat will the city do about the rats on the subway tracks at Penn Station?
Report Post »RightThinking1
Posted on July 27, 2012 at 9:55pm“This isn’t the first time the cash-strapped MTA has proposed this fee. In 2010, the mass transit agency considered a $1 surcharge on new MetroCards to help close an $800 million budget shortfall,”
Mass transit = economic loser. It’s a subsidized ride for the users.
Report Post »hoosierblue
Posted on July 28, 2012 at 6:00amNew Yorkers deserve everything they get. Go ahead and keep electing moron progressives to office.
Report Post »Larry E
Posted on July 27, 2012 at 6:38pmWhen you have a likely captive audience why not charge ‘em everything the traffic will bear plus 10%? Mike Bloomberg and the rest of the knotheads who run NYC have obviously never run a successful retail business.
Report Post »claymoremacm
Posted on July 27, 2012 at 7:36pmIf you are stupid enough to live in a termite nest(NYC) you deserve what the “queen ” dictates,freedom is not collectivism,and if you think it is, then you made your bed now sleep with the bed bugs
Report Post »hugo65hsv
Posted on July 27, 2012 at 5:40pmThe MTA is owned and run by the city of new york.. see what happens when even local Big Government takes over a private industry… The city cares less for the people who ride the subways and buses every day.. They have no choice but to pay.. There’s no competition, MTA is the only game in a town of 8 million or so customers.. Socialism in practice..
Report Post »Prosecute_Constitutional_Treason_In_Washington
Posted on July 27, 2012 at 6:08pmSo what happens if people refuse to ride? The trains are empty. Maybe it’s time to refuse to pay for extorted criminal charges. Maybe the working man and women needs to refuse to pay all raping charges and reestablish the power of collective buying.
Report Post »Dougral Supports Israel
Posted on July 27, 2012 at 5:24pmIts not an unreasonable fee but it does serve to illustrate the reality of life in the big city. In a place like NYC people pay fees, taxes, or fines every time they turn around. City governments never have enough money and are full of waste so they never stop looking for new sources of revenue. This makes city living very expensive and inconvenient.
In the end, I don’t really care what Bloomberg does to extract money from his subjects. I avoid NYC like the plague and see no reason I need to even travel through the place.
Report Post »Prosecute_Constitutional_Treason_In_Washington
Posted on July 27, 2012 at 6:09pm“green fee” is code for rape fee. Continue to rape the working men and women if they let us.
Report Post »Secret Squirrel
Posted on July 27, 2012 at 5:13pm.
Report Post »Does anyone with a functioning brain cell actually think the extra money will
be used for anything except a union payoff?
The only thing green in the NYC subway is the mold.
Baddoggy
Posted on July 27, 2012 at 5:08pmBy 2015 it will be 5.00 A tax that never ends…You deserve it New York you idiots!
Report Post »scrapadapolis
Posted on July 27, 2012 at 5:00pmWell as for some comments about taxing air in NYS they already do that,It’s called the emissions test on your car.Second why not have a bus/subway card reloadable with a bank and or cash at a booth?Use it till it wears out and obtain a new one free of charge just because you always keep it loaded with cash.
Report Post »mcellu
Posted on July 27, 2012 at 4:59pmwouldn’t it be cheaper and easier to go back to the token system?!
Report Post »RetiredAmericanNavyTaxpayer
Posted on July 29, 2012 at 8:24pmNot particularly cheaper.
First the machines would have to be retro-fitted to accept tokens or (more likely) new token-accepting machines would need to be purchased (from whatever company makes the biggest “political contributions” to the City ; then tokens have to be produced (by whatever company makes the biggest “political contributions” to the City); then maintainence personnel to keep the machines operating/repaired have to be hired (from Unions that make “political contributions” to the Party in power); Then people have to be hired (from Unions that make “political contributions” to the Party in power) to periodically empty the token boxes for resale, plus people have to be hired (from Unions that make “political contributions” to the Party in power) to sell the tokens at the stations.
So….. not so cheap.
Report Post »yanki161
Posted on July 27, 2012 at 4:52pmGo back to tokens. No printing required at all.
Report Post »barber2
Posted on July 27, 2012 at 6:50pmSuch a simple solution. No wonder the government wonks did not think of it.
Report Post »Eblaze44
Posted on July 29, 2012 at 9:58pmHow about cash – quarters, fifty cent pieces, dimes and nickles – even those dollar coins that are uselessly being stashed in some warehouse.?
Report Post »SCREW-WINDOWS
Posted on July 27, 2012 at 4:50pmWhat you have to pay everyone has a right to use the service i‘m sure it’s tucked into Obamacare somewhere.
Report Post »Snowleopard {gallery of cat folks}
Posted on July 27, 2012 at 4:43pmOne more excuse for an indirect taxation added to the people of NYC.
Report Post »team1blazer
Posted on July 27, 2012 at 4:37pmMaybe I’m the only conservative here that thinks this way, but what is the problem? If the fee is refundable, cuts costs, cuts litter and makes the system more viable, what is the downside? This seems like deposit bottles of the 70s. PLease correct me if Im wrong, but for once I think NYC got it right.
Report Post »MeteoricLimbo
Posted on July 27, 2012 at 4:54pmNYC can do whatever they elect to do. To me, it seems taxing on a system that’s overtaxed as it is but I am not a New Yorker.
Report Post »CaptRory
Posted on July 27, 2012 at 4:54pmThis doesn’t really sound that bad. If you reuse your old card you don’t pay the fee. The only stupid aspect, to my mind, is calling it a “Green Fee”.
If I get a bottle of water for my cooler, I can turn the empties in and get the deposit back. If you could turn in spent cards and get your dollar back I think they’d complete the circle on this one.
Report Post »kaydeebeau
Posted on July 27, 2012 at 5:02pmI agree with you on the principle however, I guess what I take issue with is that the assumption made by the “brains” in NYC is that one of the problems they are trying to combat is littering which is a “personal responsibility -for the sake of a civilized, ordered society” issue. Which is yet another illustration of a group of gov’t loons looking for a legal way to solve a moral foundational problem.
Which then leads me to – how is it that the secularist chafes at the instruction and self regulating principles of the Bible but is perfectly fine with imposing law after law to try to get to the same result?
In other words why if it comes from the “god” of gov’t it is good and should be embraced but if it comes from the eternal, timeless Truth of the God of the universe it is bad?
Report Post »kaydeebeau
Posted on July 27, 2012 at 4:36pmWhy not just impant a re-loadable micro chip in the back of the hand? Or you could even use some technology with a direct link to your bank account (like a mini debit card) That would be an even more “green” solution…….Not to mention the great possibilities for other data collection, it could have a GPS traker in it…I am just thinking off the top of my head… given more time I am sure we could come up with many other uses ….(sarc)
Report Post »copatriots
Posted on July 27, 2012 at 5:09pmOr they could simply read Revelation and implement all of it?
Report Post »deeberj
Posted on July 27, 2012 at 4:34pmGreen fee. Yeah, right.This is just another tax disguised as something green so stupid people will agree to it.
Report Post »crusaderx9
Posted on July 27, 2012 at 4:55pmAmen. DEEBERJ is absolutely correct.
And you can already see the “stupid people” sprouting up to defend another tax… sad
Report Post »Prosecute_Constitutional_Treason_In_Washington
Posted on July 27, 2012 at 6:11pm“green fee” is the new code for rape the working class tax.
Report Post »libsaredangerous
Posted on July 27, 2012 at 4:33pmOk. Instead of cards, why not use a piece of metal that looks like a quarter but is bigger and thicker and when the rider puts it in the machine—-it stay there and can be recycled. MARTA is doing this crap and the only thing it does is drive people away from mass transit. To plug a budget gap, instead of these stupid charges, how about you look at your union contracts? Should the person sitting in the booth make $85K a year and retire at 48 with full bennies and 60% pay? Move from NYC. It is a whole.
Report Post »RightThinking1
Posted on July 27, 2012 at 9:53pmMARTA? Are you in Atlanta?
Report Post »For the love of god, please do NOT encourage any more people from the north to leave. They are polluting the southern states like fire ants. They move in and bring their northern perspectives and habits with them, eager to turn their new surroundings into a mirror of their old surroundings.
somecallmeMC
Posted on July 28, 2012 at 9:50am@Rightthinking1 I agree I see so many NY plates here. They think they are escaping the tyranny of the north but can’t seem to understand that it is a different way of life here and try to make it more like “home”.
Report Post »Need to be FREE
Posted on July 27, 2012 at 4:32pmTo New York City citizens: Do you have more money than brains? Tax this, don’t do that on and on it goes.
Report Post »RightUnite
Posted on July 27, 2012 at 4:30pmCouldn’t happen to a nicer group of people!
Report Post »right-wing-waco
Posted on July 27, 2012 at 4:30pmThat’s just great. Next will be an oxygen fee for breathing. Way to go NYC & progressives.
Report Post »kaydeebeau
Posted on July 27, 2012 at 4:37pmDid you forget about Obamatax – we will be taxed for breathing
Report Post »CatB
Posted on July 27, 2012 at 4:52pmYes .. they now have the cradle to grave OBAMATAX … the communists dream. VOTE NOV 6th .. and demand REPEAL! You ARE taxed for breathing … then when you die .. DEATH TAX.
Report Post »Dr.Jose_Silva
Posted on July 27, 2012 at 5:14pm#right-wing-waco
It is extremely doubtful that a surcharge or tax of monetary value will encompass the inhalation of Oxygen. However, considering current EPA regulations, a dubious tax of some monetary value could legally be placed on the exhalation of CO2 which, in fact, is currently listed as a hazardous substance and a contributory factor in Green House Gases; which of course, is pure poppycock.
Report Post »copatriots
Posted on July 27, 2012 at 4:29pmOoooooooh they should!!!
Please do it, NYC! Please continue to show the rest of us how stupid you really are!
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