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Comment by bogota | Hacker News Reader

So are train tickets going down in price or more seats being added?

> "So are train tickets going down in price or more seats being added?"

You can answer this question by looking at the existing service.

Are the trains crowded, unreliable, and/or running over capacity? In that case it would be better to spend the extra money on upgrading the service. Or is the service good but not enough people are using it? In that case it may be better to use the money to reduce ticket prices.

Whatever gets more people to ride the trains is going to be the best solution.

It's actually "neither of the above": the congestion funding is simply going to replace federal funding (mostly Covid relief stuff) that is due to roll off.

The article links to another article[0] (way down in the final paragraph) about how some transit upgrades were put on hold because they were 50% funded by the congestion pricing:

> The MTA said money from congestion pricing makes up more than 50% of funding for the agency’s capital program

Presumably, those specific things can now get back underway:

> Projects that rely on the funding include modern signaling on the A train to Far Rockaway, more ADA-accessible stations and phase two of the Second Avenue subway.

[0] https://ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/transit/2024/02/16/mta-halt...

I mean, sure, that's obviously the way the MTA wants you to look at this; and indeed the congestion pricing funds are restricted to be used on the capital budget.

But that's meaningless; since capital funding from the congestion pricing lockbox will just displace debt issuance, so it's effectively just taking pressure off the operating budget, which is where the current federal funding is going.

Nothing goes down in price. Ticket prices will remain the same, but salaries will increase because of inflation, so yes, they will become more affordable. At least that's the theory.

Capital projects on the subway:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/25/nyregion/mta-congestion-p...

They’ll be six workers standing around not doing anything while one works, up from five.