MTA subway and buses won’t see a fare hike this summer—for now

New York straphangers can breathe a (slightly less expensive) sigh of relief: The MTA won’t be raising subway and bus fares this August as originally planned. But before you start celebrating with an extra coffee, know this: It’s just a delay, not a cancellation.

MTA chair and CEO Janno Lieber confirmed at Wednesday’s board meeting that the fare hike won’t go into effect this summer due to the required public hearing process, which hasn’t yet begun. “Because of the nature of the public process… it cannot and won’t be in August,” Lieber said on Wednesday. “But… it will happen, in all probability, sometime later in the year.”

Translation: Enjoy your $2.90 swipe while you can.

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The fare hike is part of the MTA’s standard budget playbook, baked in as a 4% increase every two years since 2010 (except for 2021, when the pandemic temporarily paused the plan). The agency’s $20 billion operating budget, approved in December, assumed that uptick, but without board approval and public input, the hike is on hold.

Still, don’t expect a financial free ride forever. While the exact new fare hasn’t been revealed, the MTA says it will initiate the hearing process later in 2025, likely bumping up base fares sometime after that. (The last increase, in 2023, nudged fares from $2.75 to $2.90.)

In the meantime, revenue from congestion pricing is helping cover some of the transit system’s hefty bills. The tolling program has already brought in $219 million this year, edging toward its $500 million target for 2025. That cash goes toward station upgrades, electric buses and long-overdue infrastructure fixes.

There’s also the MTA’s newly approved $68.4 billion capital plan for 2025–2029, a separate pot of funding that will bankroll modern signal upgrades, new ADA-accessible elevators and electric bus charging infrastructure.

While your fare isn’t rising just yet, the subway system is—slowly but surely—getting the glow-up it deserves. Just don’t be surprised when that $2.90 tap becomes $3-ish by the holidays.