Paris has one ticket. Why not NYC?

[Deucey]

So in Paris, it’s the same fare to ride the Métro as it is the RER within Île-de-France. In London, the Overground has the same zone fares as Underground.

Why is it that  hasn’t (or won’t) do the same thing - unify the fares - so this doesn’t need to be said?

 

[Deucey]

Granted there’s “CityFare” on the LIRR, but why does it need to be more than the subway fare within the Boroughs? Demand management? Old fiefdoms? Because the subway is City-owner and the railroads are State property?

[Kamen Rider]

The biggest hurdle is the most obvious, it costs more to operate.

Overground is a completely OPTO operation. LIRR and Metro-North crews are usually, what, four or more per train?

If the two lowered their in city fares, you would, first off, see a larger loss in fare box recovery off the bat because some people would travel the little bit further to get the cheaper ticket.

 

then comes “how do you get more money to replace what you’ve given up?”

you could look for an outside funding source... even though though could be easily lost or extremely unpopular, like a tax increase.

 

you could increase the fares of commuters from the suburbs... but that would go over like a ham and cheese sandwich at a Hasidic Bar Mitzvah. “You mean I have to pay more to waste two hours of my day each way on this bucket of bolts so someone else can travel cheaper!?!”

You could cut staffing, which will send the unions into a tizzy.

or you can cut service and make everyone miserable...

[SubwayFan3000]

It's all Corruption and Lobbyism.

[Jsunflyguy]

Because people who live out East will have a conniption if they get any hint that "those" people are getting fare cuts to ride "their" trains. Americans need to feel like they're getting ahead and doing better than somebody else, so the idea of someone paying less for the service they rely on is anathema. 

[Deucey]

12 hours ago, Kamen Rider said:

If the two lowered their in city fares, you would, first off, see a larger loss in fare box recovery off the bat because some people would travel the little bit further to get the cheaper ticket.

That’s really no different than cities and TA’s losing parking revenue because people park on residential streets. The ridership makeup - three city residents and one from Carle Place driving to Jamaica paying $2.75 vs one paying $10.75 makes 25¢ more for . Plus fuel tax for the person driving from Carle Place. And let it be alternate side around Jamaica and that’s $60 for the City if that Carle Place driver gets caught by the SmartCar.

[Kamen Rider]

I don't mean Carle Place, I mean more like Great Neck sneaking over to Little Neck or Valley Stream to Rosedale.

 

This is all besides the point that Jsun is right, the suburban commuters view the railroad as theirs, it's their only choice to get to the city that doesn't involve a highway. They'd take about as much offense that me, the pasty white Irish lass that I am, would be getting on the train for so much less then they paid as they would anyone else, and like I said, their fares would almost certainly go UP to cover it. 

 

In this sense, the Overground is not exactly the best yardstick, given it's design isn't mostly around London, not into and out of save the trains out of Liverpool Street and the Watford DC Line. 

[bulk88]

Metrocard is not capable of distance based fares.

[Kamen Rider]

I think his argument is to eliminate the in city zones and just have them with a general fare.

but at the same time, by that logic, shouldn’t we also be dropping express bus fairs? Let everyone ride wherever they want.

(that sound you just heard was every express bus rider having an aneurism... forget being possessive of their system, they get possessive of particular seats.)   

[LTA1992]

9 hours ago, Kamen Rider said:

I think his argument is to eliminate the in city zones and just have them with a general fare.

but at the same time, by that logic, shouldn’t we also be dropping express bus fairs? Let everyone ride wherever they want.

(that sound you just heard was every express bus rider having an aneurism... forget being possessive of their system, they get possessive of particular seats.)   

Express buses are a waste anyway.

Aside from the SIM routes, the rest don't save that much time and aren't worth the price of admission.

[Via Garibaldi 8]

9 hours ago, Kamen Rider said:

I think his argument is to eliminate the in city zones and just have them with a general fare.

but at the same time, by that logic, shouldn’t we also be dropping express bus fairs? Let everyone ride wherever they want.

(that sound you just heard was every express bus rider having an aneurism... forget being possessive of their system, they get possessive of particular seats.)   

 

44 minutes ago, LTA1992 said:

Express buses are a waste anyway.

Aside from the SIM routes, the rest don't save that much time and aren't worth the price of admission.

You two can speak for yourselves. For people without subways, they are a necessity. 

[them26]

Paris and Europe in general organize their rail services to be more conducive to a unified fare structure. The European hierarchy of metro - S-Bahn - regional - intercity is distinct from the American hierarchy of subway - express subway - commuter rail -  intercity.  The RER is a S-Bahn style system which means it blends our notions of an express subway with commuter rail. It's a very different approach that comes with disadvantages and advantages.

A RER style train implemented in NY would look very different from our commuter railroads. To give an example, imagine LIRR trains from its shorter branches being diverted to run via Queens Blvd express tracks,  then making only express stops in Manhattan, finally ending on one of the shorter NJT branches.  A lot would have to be changed to make that work. Fare collection by conductors would not be feasible and would have to be replaced with zoned fare gates. The rolling stock of LIRR/NJT would be unsuitable with their narrow aisles, seating designed for low turnover (by that I mean the seat is intended to be occupied by one person per trip) and 2 doors per 85'. See Fig.1, RER trains are closer to subway stock.

On 3/4/2020 at 9:36 PM, Deucey said:

Granted there’s “CityFare” on the LIRR, but why does it need to be more than the subway fare within the Boroughs? Demand management? Old fiefdoms? Because the subway is City-owner and the railroads are State property?

It's intended that LIRR passengers all have a seat ((necessary since they operate routes up to 60 miles in length), as such the rolling stock does not cope well with standees. Their dwell times would suffer immensely if you applied subway loads to them.  That's why "CityFare" was restricted to weekends only - low demand.

On 3/4/2020 at 11:24 PM, Kamen Rider said:

The biggest hurdle is the most obvious, it costs more to operate.

Overground is a completely OPTO operation. LIRR and Metro-North crews are usually, what, four or more per train?

Their crews are one conductor, one locomotive engineer and the rest being assistant conductors for the sake of covering fare collection. NYCT had fare collection via conductor with Train to the Plane and it too had a corresponding fare premium.

Many transit bloggers who unfavorably compare American commuter rail to European S-Bahns are deeply critical of the inefficiency of having crew checking tickets, but ignore the unsuitability of S-Bahns for longer commutes.

 

Fig.1

 

Edited March 8, 2020 by them26

[Deucey]

25 minutes ago, them26 said:

To give an example, imagine LIRR trains from its shorter branches being diverted to run via Queens Blvd express tracks,  then making only express stops in Manhattan, finally ending on one of the shorter NJT branches.

Since RER shares trackage with SNCF, and not Métro...

Also, you ignore that excepting Manhattan (bc the MNRR stations between GCT and 125 were removed), the railroads stop in the boroughs and then make fairly frequent stops in the burbs - like RER. Especially MNRR with all the stops on the lines in the Bronx.

So this wasn’t the best comparison to use for a rebuttal.

36 minutes ago, them26 said:

It's intended that LIRR passengers all have a seat ((necessary since they operate routes up to 60 miles in length), as such the rolling stock does not cope well with standees.

Counting all branches:

RER Line A is 67 miles long

RER Line B is 50 miles long

RER Line C is 115 miles long

RER Line D is 120 miles long

RER Line E is 32 miles long

Each line offers thru-service, so...

43 minutes ago, them26 said:

Their dwell times would suffer immensely if you applied subway loads to them.  That's why "CityFare" was restricted to weekends only - low demand.

Easily mitigated by tap cards and faregates, and redoing the seating configuration. Especially since the bulk of the RER fleet has two doors only, at the ends - like  and  fleets.

Not to dissect your reply fiercely. My point is that there’s no reason not to consider this beyond classism and NY Exceptionalism. It takes cars off the Belt and 495, it brings in more revenue, it saves on megaproject costs because it uses “spare capacity”, and it’s how an integrated transport system should be.

Hell, I’d even argue LIRR and NJT should be a joint system for thru-train running since that could solve congestion problems at Penn - as zone fares could reduce tunnel and bridge utilization and congestion.

Its why European cities have done schemes like this as part of attempting to meet the Kyoto Protocol and now Paris Agreement limits. Why aren’t we, but I gotta pay 10¢ per plastic bag now?

[them26]

10 hours ago, Deucey said:

Counting all branches:

RER Line A is 67 miles long

RER Line B is 50 miles long

RER Line C is 115 miles long

RER Line D is 120 miles long

RER Line E is 32 miles long

Each line offers thru-service, so...

Those are misleading statistics. That's not end to end length. They're summing the length of the separate branches of each line (RER Line D has branches D1, D2, D3, ... , D8). End to end trips on the RER are roughly 40 miles long.

If NY commuter rail was theoretically through run you'd have  end to end routes like:

Trenton-Ronkonkoma (107 miles)

Dover - Babylon ( 79 miles )

Long Branch - Huntington ( 86 miles)

vs

RER Line A (via A3 to A4 ) ( 43 miles)

RER Line B (via B3 to B4) ( 40 miles)

 

10 hours ago, Deucey said:

Hell, I’d even argue LIRR and NJT should be a joint system for thru-train running since that could solve congestion problems at Penn

Don't think anyone would disagree with that except their respective managements. It's probably the biggest waste of rail resources in the world. On a daily basis, NJT has hundreds of trains passing through the East River Tunnels only to store and retrieve them from Sunnyside.

Edited March 9, 2020 by them26

[bobtehpanda]

11 hours ago, them26 said:

A RER style train implemented in NY would look very different from our commuter railroads. To give an example, imagine LIRR trains from its shorter branches being diverted to run via Queens Blvd express tracks,  then making only express stops in Manhattan, finally ending on one of the shorter NJT branches.  A lot would have to be changed to make that work. Fare collection by conductors would not be feasible and would have to be replaced with zoned fare gates. The rolling stock of LIRR/NJT would be unsuitable with their narrow aisles, seating designed for low turnover (by that I mean the seat is intended to be occupied by one person per trip) and 2 doors per 85'. See Fig.1, RER trains are closer to subway stock.

Quite frankly, to run through-running services and increase frequency, you would need a lot of rolling stock to be purchased anyways. So you could relegate older inappropriate stock to boosting frequency on long superruns that will never be through routed (e.g. Ronkonkoma)

There are plenty of inner routes that would still get you in that 40 mile mark; Far Rock is 22 miles from Penn, as is Hempstead.

1 hour ago, them26 said:

Those are misleading statistics. That's not end to end length. They're summing the length of the separate branches of each line (RER Line D has branches D1, D2, D3, ... , D8). End to end trips on the RER are roughly 40 miles long.

If NY commuter rail was theoretically through run you'd have  end to end routes like:

Trenton-Ronkonkoma (107 miles)

Dover - Babylon ( 79 miles )

Long Branch - Huntington ( 86 miles)

vs

RER Line A (via A3 to A4 ) ( 43 miles)

RER Line B (via B3 to B4) ( 40 miles)

 

Don't think anyone would disagree with that except their respective managements. It's probably the biggest waste of rail resources in the world. On a daily basis, NJT has hundreds of trains passing through the East River Tunnels only to store and retrieve them from Sunnyside.

London Thameslink actually does through-run trains all the way from Bedford to Brighton, a distance of 91 miles. Cambridge to Brighton on the same trains is 95 miles.

[Around the Horn]

I doubt you would actually through run Trenton or Ronkonkoma or Long Branch or Huntington. Those would most likely remain direct zone expresses to the CBD supplementing a through running inner core (Think New Brunswick/Aberdeen-Matawan/Hicksville).

(And arguably, a Trenton express should be converted to a NY-Philadelphia Clocker service but that's a whole other discussion.)

[Deucey]

7 hours ago, them26 said:

Those are misleading statistics.

Only if one ignores the part where I said “Counting all branches”...

[lirr42]

Full fare integration is a worthy goal, but we are a long way from that being practical in NYC.  The New York metro area is a lot more expansive, with more people living out in the suburbs than most comparable cities.  Metro/rapid transit coverage also typically extends to cover more of the population, so the suburban railways have to fill smaller gaps.  Comparable systems also tend to be a lot more competently managed, adopting modern operating practices that helps bring down operating costs and makes those lower fares financially sustainable. 

In NY, high rail fares for intra-city travel is definitely a problem...but it is also a significant problem out in the suburbs as well.  Overhauling the railroad fare structures to standardize fares at express bus-levels should be a good initial starting point, and then work downwards from there as the railroads adopt modern operating practices and increase capacity.

[bobtehpanda]

7 hours ago, lirr42 said:

In NY, high rail fares for intra-city travel is definitely a problem...but it is also a significant problem out in the suburbs as well.  Overhauling the railroad fare structures to standardize fares at express bus-levels should be a good initial starting point, and then work downwards from there as the railroads adopt modern operating practices and increase capacity.

In general NY needs to adopt a more rigid, structured fare system, with the following limits:

• Unlimiteds should generally break-even at two trips per workweek in the given time. (10 trips for a 7 day pass, 40 trips for a 30-day pass). If we have fare capping it should work along the same lines, though a daily fare cap should probably be set higher than just two trips.
• Premium fares (express bus, railroad, whatever) should be set at double the regular fare.
• In the same vein as the LIRR, we should also offer buying a discounted 10-trip with a long expiry period.

The fare system is not only broken for the LIRR. Right now unlimiteds really don't make sense for most people.