The MBTA has approved 13,625 applications for its new low-income fare program as of Thursday Nov. 7, roughly two months after the T started accepting applications for the program.
The new reduced-fare CharlieCards offer half-priced fares on every MBTA service – including commuter rail and The RIDE paratransit services – for riders who have verified that their household earnings are lower than 200 percent of the federal poverty level.
In the Boston region, that income limit would be $29,160 for a single-person household, or $60,000 for a household of four.
MBTA spokesperson Lisa Battinson provided the enrollment figure for StreetsblogMASS last week, but added that it was still to early in the program to calculate exactly how much money riders are saving from their reduced-fare rides.
Lawmakers set aside $20 million in the latest state budget to initiate the program and compensate the MBTA for reduced fare collections. The state funding comes from revenue from the state's new "Fair Share" income tax on household earnings over $1 million.
That means that $20 million in public transit expenses that had previously come out of the pockets of low-income riders will now instead come from the state's wealthiest earners.
Riders are already feeling the benefits
Last Thursday, StreetsblogMASS visited some downtown Boston subway stations to try to find some riders with the new cards.
We didn't have to look hard to find them.
At Downtown Crossing, we met Maryam, a rider who'd received a Reduced Fare CharlieCard within the past month.
"I save a lot – I'm a student at community college, so I ride every day, at least twice a day, sometimes more, for school, for appointments... It helps with rent and paying bills, especially with winter coming."
In the Haymarket station, MBTA customer Ana Pardee told StreetsblogMASS that she received her reduced-fare CharlieCard about three weeks ago.
"It was easy to apply, and it didn't take long to get the card. Less than a week," Pardee said.
As a resident of Falmouth on Cape Cod, she usually uses the discounted fare on her commute to work in Boston from the end of the Kingston-Plymouth line. That "Zone 8" commuter rail trip used to cost her $12.25 each way; now, it's $6.
She also uses her new CharlieCard to run errands on buses and the subway when she's in the city.
"If I lived here, I would use it every day," Pardee told StreetsblogMASS. "But I've probably saved close to $100. It's good savings."
Many more riders could be eligible
While we were speaking, another MBTA customer waiting on a bench nearby interrupted us to ask Pardee where she got the card, and how it worked.
"(The MBTA) should do more to let people know about this," she told StreetsblogMASS.
Earlier this year, the MBTA forecast that approximately 60,000 riders could eventually enroll in the program – more than four times as many people as have enrolled to date.
