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Traveling within city limits on the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North is about to get cheaper.
The MTA on Tuesday announced that trips that start and end within the five boroughs on these two lines will get discounted tickets as part of the rollout of congestion pricing in Manhattan, according to Gothamist.
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The MTA board will approve a 10% discount for these fare zones, reducing the cost of a monthly LIRR pass between Jamaica and Penn Station from $220 to $198 and monthly Metro-North passes between Grand Central Terminal and the northern Bronx from $199.75 to $180, the publication says.
The hope is that some commuters will start taking public transit once congestion pricing goes into effect on June 30. The discounts hit on July 1.
“Getting on board the rails, getting on board subways, getting on buses, getting on express buses is the way to travel. Nobody likes to sit in traffic,” Lisa Daglian, executive director of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA, told Gothamist. “New York City has the best transit in the United States. It will save time, it will save money and it will help to save the environment and climate.”
Aside from this discount, NYC Transit has been running an additional 1,200 subway trains every week over the last several months and six more lines—the B, D, M, J, 3 and 5 trains—will get increases in service in June. “Subway service continues to deliver the best on-time performance in the last 10 years,” the MTA says.
It also says that The Staten Island Express Bus Network and the Bronx Local Bus Network redesign have brought service increases during off-peak periods and other service improvements, for an increase of 6% ridership since they launched. With added busways and Select Bus Service, there’s been a 60% increase in bus speed.
By opening Grand Central Madison, service increased by 41%, adding more than 77,000 trains a year, including a 35% increase at eastern Queens stations, 30% increase in Brooklyn trains (55% increase in weekend service), and 50% increase in reverse peak service, the MTA says. It also added a $7 peak City Ticket for travel on the LIRR and Metro-North Railroad between commuter railroad stations within city limits, and an LIRR Far Rockaway ticket.
Metro-North Railroad has also increased service in the Bronx with its own $7 peak CityTicket. According to the MTA, already this year, the railroad averaged an on-time performance of 98.9%.
All this to say, the city has been working to ensure its public transit can handle an influx of riders who won’t want to pay the congestion pricing fees.
Additionally, the MTA opened its application portal for discount and exemption plans for households earning less than $50,000 a year, disabled individuals, emergency vehicles, buses and commuter vans and specialized government vehicles.
For more information about NYC’s congestion pricing plan, read our explainer here.