MTA and the case of the missing 23 hours
 New York, NY
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 by Editor

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Still think you are paying too much for your train ride? Has the effect of that fare hike made any difference at all? Does it upset you that since the hike there have been more layoff's of MTA employees? How about the fact, that despite the MTA charging more, they still have down video cameras in some off the most trafficked areas in town? And yet, they are taking more money than you think. Question? Let us explain.

Last Monday at 11:00pm in the evening a weekly metro card at the price of $27 for 7 days was purchased, As we all know, there are 24 hours in one day. multiply that by 7 days in one week, and you arrive at 168 hours in one week. Well, the same weekly metro card that was purchased on a Monday at 11pm was void at the following Monday 12m. Now, if you are thinking, so what, that is one hour after 11pm, remember, 12m is an hour before morning, so 12m Monday and 11pm Monday the same Monday are 23 hours apart. Therefor, MTA robbed this weekly pass of 23 hours from its 168 hour limit. When speaking to an MTA employee complaint agent on the phone, I asked her, "Is the card based on a 168 hour week?", her reply, "Yes it is, it does not start until you first wipe it." confirming my beliefs that this weekly metro pass was robbed of 23 hours. When asking the agent how I could have this rectified, she informed me I must mail a letter and the Metro pass in to the office with an explanation of my findings, then an investigation will begin and they will determine how to handle the case after a thorough investigation. She mentioned this could be as much as 8 weeks time.

Speaking to an agent at a terminal booth in Union square, I was informed that the 7 day passes do indeed stop at 12m of the weekly day of purchase. So no matter, when on a Wednesday, Thursday or whatever day you purchase it, the next week on the same day the card will expire at 12m.

So more math was then put down on paper and the numbers are a bit upsetting. Assume this previous math of a metro weekly pass costing $27 for 7 days, that means, considering there are 168 hours in one week, the price breaks down to a fraction of a cent over $0.16 per hour.  We will also guess that, buying the 7 day pass at 11pm is the exception. People are traveling more in the day, so lets say mid-day, at 12noon, 100 people per day buy a 7day pass. Since we have found that this card will expire at 12m, that means these people will be robbed of 12 hours from a traditional, calendar week. That's 1200 hours per day. That's 436,000+ hours per year. And that's only for a fraction of the people! Another way, is to say they are stealing upwards of 10 weeks worth of hours/per day! Hundreds of thousands of people ride the train. Multiply that by the amount of weekly passes purchased every year, and you just have to wonder, where does all this missing time and money go?
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Last updated  New York, NY 10.04.12  by Editor