Fare Ain’t Fair Coalition Fights Planned Fare Hike in NYC

In late July, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) of New York City announced that it would delay the upcoming fare hike from August 2025 to January 2026. The fare hike is part of the deepening economic crisis, raising the cost of buses, subways, trains, and tolls for millions of poor and working class New Yorkers. The delay in the fare hike follows a months-long campaign waged by the Fare Ain’t Fair Coalition opposing the hike under the slogan “The Fare Ain’t Fare and the Poor Won’t Pay More!” Below is an edited transcript of an interview The Worker carried out with a leader of the Fare Ain’t Fair Coalition

What is the Fare Ain’t Fair (FAF) Campaign?

The FAF is a campaign and coalition that consists of a number of organizations led by the December 12th Movement focused on addressing the affordability crisis as it pertains to transit. Transit is one of the basic necessities in order for us to exist in the city. It also acts as the artery through which workers move throughout this city and sell their labor-power in order to sustain themselves. So, in observing that it’s a necessity and that it’s something that we need to exist in this city, we’re focused on it’s unaffordability.

The campaign right now has two core demands. One of them is that the ceiling for the Fair Fares program, which is a program that cuts the fare in half for those who are eligible, gets raised to $400% of the federal poverty level, as opposed to 145% of the federal poverty level. The other demand is to stop the fare hike from happening.

Who are the friends and enemies of the campaign?

This campaign is mobilizing a number of organizations, but it’s also organizing the poor and working people of this city, that’s who’s at the core of it. It includes MTA workers too—TWU 100 [Transport Workers Union] is a part of the campaign and we have a number of union representatives who are friends and participants in the campaign.

The targets are the MTA Board, who are definitely antagonistic because they want the fare hike. When we go and we demand that the fare hike not happen, that’s who we’re going to demand it against. Certain elements of city council we would also declare as targets as some may lean certain ways when it comes to the expansion of Fair Fares. And I would say more broadly, I think the MTA is subject to the interests of a certain class of people in this city, so let’s not delink the MTA from the capitalist economy that we’re living in. The MTA is also representative and subject to the will of a certain bourgeoisie, the banking class, Wall Street. The MTA is in debt to Wall Street.

How does the fare hike relate to the economic crisis?

The hike is just a part of the increasing inability to pay for basic things. We see rent is going up, we know that groceries are going up, and so transit is falling in line with that. The idea is that it’s becoming more and more difficult to afford the basic things that you need to live in this city. The transit question is so crazy because we’re talking about the ability for you to go to work just to be able to sell your labor-power to afford your basic necessities. So the very basis through which you can afford your necessities in this economy is increasing in cost as well. We see the fare as a double tax. The MTA already receives funding from the government, which comes from your taxes, and then they also charge you at the toll booth or the fare box.

If you look at the historic examples of when the MTA was made free, it was two times. One time during COVID, and then one time right after 9/11. That was because there was a certain level of consumer activity that was down in the city, so in an act of economic stimulus, they made the transit system free. The MTA serves as an economic backbone of the city. If they really want to do it, they can make it free. But it’s a question of whose pockets it’s hurting.

How does the campaign tie into police violence?

I think it’s clear, the police terrorize Black communities. That’s a phenomena in itself. But there’s also the criminalization of poverty, and there is often an economic precondition through which interactions with the police happen. If you think of Eric Garner, he was selling loosies [individual cigarettes], and so there was an economic precondition through which he was even interacting with the police in the first place. That is not to discount the exceptional nature of the violence that Black people experience at the hands of the police. But there is a connection to the economic, which is very important. So when we look at Derell Mickles [a subway rider shot by NYPD in September 2024 after being pursued for fare evasion], he was alleged to be guilty of evading the fair. This was the basis through which he interacted with the police.

How does the campaign connect with MTA workers?

When it comes to riders vs workers, MTA makes a concerted effort to pit the two against each other and promote this idea that workers and riders have diverging and potentially antagonistic relationships to each other. With us, the campaign recognizes that this isn’t the case, that, in fact, the MTA is the workers’ boss, that’s the person who’s exploiting you, that’s the person who you should really have the smoke for when it comes to your wages, when it comes to your pay, when it comes to your safety.

When the free fare pilot program for the buses happened during COVID, assaults on bus drivers went down dramatically, because oftentimes a lot of the arguments have been over paying or not paying the fare. So when we talk about people’s inability to pay the fare, we’re also talking about potential encounters for workers’ safety.

How can people support the campaign?

Join us for a tabling, follow December 12th Movement on social media to stay up to date. We encourage people to repost that stuff, but we really encourage people to get involved with the actual political work—come out to the rallies, more boots on the ground, hitting the streets, handing out flyers. This is an opportunity for us to exercise our power as poor and working people and develop some sort of unity as poor and working people in this city, as black and brown people in this city. So come out to the tabling, we do them every weekend, and we’re in the streets throughout the week.

Photo: Fare Ain’t Fair rally. Credit: D12 Movement.

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