I cleaned out my purse this morning and found a list of how the price of a New York City subway ride has cost over the years. The subway opened in October 1904, run by a private company, the Interborough Rapid Transit Co. (though that first line operated only within one borough, Manhattan). After a ceremonial ride from one end (City Hall) to the other (145th Street, in Harlem), 100,000 people paid five cents to ride the train from and to any of the then 28 stations.
Five cents remained the fare for the next 44 years, as the private Brooklyn-Manhattan Company (1923) and the city-owned Independent line (1932) ran additional routes and dozens more stations. In 1940, the city bought the private companies, which were doing badly, but the fare remained a nickel — until 1948.
From then on, the fare rose, once after only a year.
10 cents (1948–1953)
15 cents (1953–1966)
20 cents (1966–1969)
30 cents (1970–1971)
35 cents (Jan. 1, 1972–Aug. 31, 1975)
50 cents (Sept. 1, 1975–June 28, 1980)
60 cents (June 29, 1980–July 3, 1981)
75 cents (July 4, 1981–Dec. 31, 1983)
90 cents (Jan. 1, 1984–Dec. 31, 1985)
$1.00 (Jan. 1. 1986–Dec. 31, 1989)
$1.15 (Jan. 1, 1990–Dec. 31, 1991)
$1.25 (Jan. 1, 1992–Nov. 11, 1995)
$1.50 (Nov. 12, 1995–May 3, 2003)
$2.00 (May 4, 2003–June 27, 2009)
$2.25 (June 28, 2009–Mar. 18, 2017)
$2.75 (Mar. 19, 2017–present)
Five cents for the first 44 years, rising to more than 20 times that in the next 44 years.
Schoolchildren and those over 65 pay half-fare.
There may be a fare rise to $3.00 this year, but that’s just being mentioned quietly.
And now that I’ve posted all of this here, I can throw away that little piece of paper with all this information.
