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Comment by throwaway_80bf3 | Hacker News Reader

About 8 years ago there were a few house ads in the cars that were effectively gaslighting riders. It was one of the craziest things I'd ever seen as a consumer -- borderline antagonistic. The agency, and the workers to some extent, can be pugilistic when criticized.

http://cdn.journalism.cuny.edu/blogs.dir/176/files/2010/03/f...

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For those of us who aren't familiar with the price history what's the lie here?

The MTA is comparing single-ride fares with "effective" cost per ride of a then-$81 30 day pass, which they amortize over around 70 rides, which is a bit high for the average person in my experience (though not ridiculous).

It might be more accurate to compare the single-ride fare then with the single-ride fare at the time the photo was taken, which was either $2.00 or $2.25 (the price changed in 2009, I think).

I surprised that they don't have a commuter ticket system. In my city the commuter ticket price is calculated to be somewhat cheaper than return fare*20 as well as being a tax deductible.

Did they have multi-day passes back then? It might be reasonable to compare the cheapest options available then.

They did not. You actually bought metal subway tokens that you dropped into a coin slot on the turnstile.

See:

https://untappedcities.com/2011/07/06/subway-tokens-a-dose-o...

They're comparing a single-ride fare to a monthly-pass fare. A single ride fare cost $2.00 in 2008[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_transit_fares#Fa...

The obvious part of the lie to me is that they would raise fares to increase revenue, and claim that because of the 30-day and 7-day discounts you wouldn't be paying any more.

Huh? How are you going to increase revenue if no one is paying more.

Tourists. We have quite a few of them here.

Right and if they ran that ad today, 10 years later the single ride fare has more than doubled @ $2.75 a ride on a $131 dollar monthly pass.

Twice as much for worse service.

How is this gaslighting? Transportation costs have done a reasonable job of not growing faster than inflation...

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