Testimony: Transit Hardship Among New Yorkers
Emerita Torres
Testimony on New York City Council Budget and Oversight Hearings on The Preliminary Budget for Fiscal Year 2025
Before the NY City Council Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
Thank you for providing the opportunity to testify today. My name is Emerita Torres and I lead Policy Research and Advocacy for Community Service Society, an organization dedicated to improving lives of low-income New Yorkers and championing a more equitable city. For 175 years, CSS has provided comprehensive direct services, engaged in rigorous research and policy analysis, and advanced strategic advocacy initiatives to alleviate hardship and promote economic opportunity for our fellow New Yorkers.
My testimony today will focus on the state of transit hardship among New Yorkers and how we can alleviate that by leveraging the Fair Fares program to its full potential.
Since 2014, CSS’s annual survey of low-income New Yorkers, the Unheard Third, has asked people about transit hardship. In 2023, approximately one-in-five New Yorkers reported that they often struggled to pay for mass transit. Among those in poverty (family of 4 incomes below $31,200) and those in near-poverty, defined as people with incomes between 100 and 200 percent of the Federal Poverty Level (family of 4 incomes between $31,200 and $62,400), the rate was higher at 30 percent. Even among New Yorkers who are not considered low-income, i.e. those with incomes 200 or even 400 percent above the poverty line (family of 4 incomes above $124,800), 14 percent said that they struggle to pay subway and bus fares.
It is important to unpack what transit hardship really looks like: individuals and families that are most transit dependent—those who have been pushed to the far corners of the outer-boroughs because of our increasingly unaffordable housing market, those who do not have the luxury of hailing a cab via an app, or of paying thousands of dollars to afford a car—are the ones who are experiencing restricted mobility because they cannot pay the fare. And the legacy of historical and current marginalization ensures that these are New Yorkers, largely people of color, are trying to find a foothold in our city. Unable to afford transit, these New Yorkers are missing classes, job fairs, medical appointments, family gatherings, and a lot of more of what our great city has to offer, because they have to make each dollar stretch so much farther. Many attempt fare evasion and end up being penalized with fines, convictions and even arrests, which starts a perpetual cycle of the criminalization of poverty.
But the City has a great solution for this challenge in the Fair Fares program, which makes transit more affordable. As you heard this morning, the program has an estimated 320,000 enrollees. This has been a gamechanger for them. But they represent only a third of the almost one million adult New Yorkers who are eligible. Our research and analysis of the program points to two core issues with the program’s current design.
First, the eligibility threshold needs to be expanded to include all New Yorkers with incomes less than 200 percent of the federal poverty line. When it comes to measuring economic need in New York City, the federal poverty line is woefully inadequate. We see this across many different benefits programs, including Fair Fares. By using 120 percent of FPL as the threshold, the Fair Fares program is excluding hundreds of thousands of working New Yorkers who are far from economic security but who make too much to qualify as they hover just slightly above the poverty line. . These individuals are working minimum wage jobs, mostly likely in face-to-face industries like hospitality or home healthcare, which require them to commute to work on a daily basis, and whose households would really benefit from the reduced fare program. Our analysis suggests that expanding the eligibility will make an additional 750,000 adults eligible for the program and it would cost the city an additional $55 million, assuming the current pattern of usage continues to prevail. This is a drop in the budget compared to the upward mobility it would provide – to over a million New Yorkers in need. We are heartened that the NY legislature supports expansion of the Fair Fares program, with the NY Assembly calling for additional funding of $127 million in their proposed one-house budget resolution to expand the program’s eligibility threshold to 200 percent of the federal poverty line.
Second, there needs to be a greater awareness of the program. While there has been some improvement on this front over the past two years, our survey shows that over half (56 percent) of the eligible population is still not engaged with the process of enrollment. Awareness is lowest among Asian New Yorkers and Queens residents, indicating the need for a more concerted and targeted effort to reach non-English speaking, often immigrant New Yorkers. Thus far, we are yet to see a detailed plan from the administration regarding outreach that lays out how they will involve the network of service providers, CBOs, and other local organizations to educate their constituencies about the program. Additionally, transit advocates, stakeholders and the general public should also be made aware of the funding that would be allocated towards outreach and awareness.
Finally, we reiterate our request to the administration for greater sharing of data relating to the Fair Fares program. In addition to sharing weekly enrollment figures, we would like, at the very least, data on enrollment disaggregated by gender, race/ethnicity, and neighborhoods, on an annual basis, to better inform outreach initiatives.
All New Yorkers deserve to avail the city’s mass transit system and benefit from the connectedness it offers. It can be a great equalizer for a city that remains hyper segregated along racial, ethnic and income lines. It is our hope that the City Council and the administration will be able to help us realize this vision.
Thank you again for this opportunity. Please reach out to me at etorres@cssny.org if you have any questions.