Half-Price MetroCards For Poor Funded In NYC Budget, Reports Say

NEW YORK CITY HALL — Mayor Bill de Blasio and the City Council have reached a deal to offer half-price MetroCards to poor straphangers, according to news reports published Thursday. The agreement would put $106 million in the upcoming city budget to support the "Fair Fares" program starting in January, according to The New York Times and Politico New York.

The initiative will halve the cost of MetroCards for up to 800,000 New Yorkers living below the federal poverty line, meaning a family of four would have to earn $25,100 or less a year to qualify.

The deal, reportedly expected to be announced Monday, offers half the $212 million that the Council sought for the program in its April budget proposal.

The compromise is considered a step toward fully implementing the program in the future, Politico reported. It would not launch until halfway through the fiscal year in January so the city could promote it, according to the Times.

Council Speaker Corey Johnson led an aggressive push for the program, pitching it as a way to make New York a fairer city. Council members urged New Yorkers on social media and at subway stations to pressure the mayor into funding it.

Some components of the program, including how the city would administer it, have yet to be finalized, the Times reported.

De Blasio resisted, saying he supported the idea but did not want the city to pay for it. The mayor offered Johnson $25 million for the program at a late-night Gracie Mansion meeting last week, prompting the speaker to walk out, according to the Times.

A Council spokesman said he could not confirm any details of the deal. At a news conference Thursday, Johnson said talks about the program were still ongoing.

"We are fighting, we are pushing," Johnson said. "I feel like we hopefully will have, hopefully, a deal soon but negotiations continue."

A spokesman for de Blasio echoed that, saying the mayor's office would "have more to say soon."

"No deal at this point," Eric Phillips, de Blasio's press secretary, said on Twitter. "Still a little meat left on the bone."

The reported deal marks a victory for Johnson and advocates who have supported a Fair Fares program for years. The speaker was seen smiling and exchanging handshakes with Council members after a City Hall meeting Thursday afternoon.

"This will make an enormous difference for economically struggling New Yorkers and will be a major step towards making New York a fairer, more equitable city," the Community Service Society, an anti-poverty advocacy group that pushed for Fair Fares, said in a statement.

The Council must still vote to approve the budget before the 2019 fiscal year starts in July. De Blasio's $89 billion executive budget included new spending for schools, public housing and homeless services.

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