It’s tough, isn’t it, getting around on New Year’s Eve? You’ve had one too many (that last martini was really a mistake), a bag strap broke back on 14th Street, and now you’re at the turnstile and the MetroCard is missing and you ran out of cash an hour ago and — oh, no, here’s the train, gah!
It would be so much simpler if the subway were just, well, free. For a few brief hours in the 1980s, it was.
The city’s buses, subways and commuter railroads all stopped charging, from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m., on New Year’s Eves 1984 and 1985, in an effort to discourage drunken driving and encourage safe behavior on one of the more raucous nights of the year. And while the free rides fell victim to vandalism, muggings, attempted stabbings and “roving bands of drunken teenagers,” some of the city’s more notable nostalgists continue to reminisce about those brief golden hours of gratis public transit.
“Those free hours were always a lovely treat for New Yorkers who wanted to hit the town on the eve,” Michael Musto, the Village Voice columnist and longtime chronicler of the downtown set, wrote in an e-mail message. “They didn’t benefit me personally since I’ve always ridden everywhere on my bike, even in freezing weather, but I remember friends taking advantage of the free passes, and some of them didn’t even have anywhere specific to go!”
The grand experiment made its debut at 8 p.m. on Dec. 31, 1984, after Edward I. Koch and Mario M. Cuomo (then mayor and governor, respectively), pushed the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to suspend the 90-cent fare as a safety measure. New Jersey Transit and PATH trains had run a similar free-ride program in 1983.
Officials at the transit authority grumbled about an estimated $1 million in lost revenue, but editorials at the time praised the decision. “Less driving on the least sober night of the year easily justifies the expense,” The Times wrote. “Deaths and injuries caused by drunk drivers probably cost more. So does traffic congestion.”
While drunken revelers — described in one account as wearing “cowboy boots with spurs, or leather chaps, or confetti in their hair, or cardboard tiaras or white top hats or metallic blue fezzes” — enjoyed the complimentary rides, authority figures were less amused.
“There were a fair number of groups who got on trains with no particular destination other than to ride the train as a place to have a party,” groused Bruce McIver, president of the Long Island Rail Road. Of 225 trains operating that night on the railroad, 100 were delayed because of a variety of mischievous activities, many of which required a call to the police. The night ended with ripped seats, graffitied windows and four arrests.
Things did not go much better on the city subways. The transportation authority recorded 55 felonies and 29 arrests that night, up from 33 felonies and 15 arrests during the previous New Year’s Eve. (Officials attributed some of the problems to higher ridership.)
Despite those hiccups, the free fares went into effect again on Dec. 31, 1985, although the Long Island Rail Road, apparently stung by the experience, opted out.
It took an all-too-contemporary scourge — a transportation authority budget crisis — for the program to meet its demise. By December 1986, the authority was struggling with an $8.6 billion financing gap and an intransigent set of state lawmakers who refused to free up the extra cash. (Sound familiar?) The tussle led the authority to threaten an immediate fare increase, to $1.35 from $1, which would go into effect Jan. 1.
Given the situation, free rides on New Year’s Eve did not make much sense from a budgetary or bargaining standpoint. A last-minute settlement, early on the morning of Dec. 31, averted the fare increase, but it was too late to restore the gratis rides. “This is an unfortunate fallout, perhaps, of the protracted nature of this process,” Robert R. Kiley, the chairman of the authority, said at the time.
The glory days of complimentary New Year’s Eve travel never returned, and readers should not expect them back any time soon. Transit officials, asked whether free rides were a possibility this year, gravely noted that the authority was already facing a $300 million shortfall: not the best time to lose another batch of fare revenue.
Instead, New Yorkers seeking a free way to use mass transit will have to depend on a vodka company. Cîroc Ultra Premium Vodka, a French spirit “made using French mauzac blanc and ugni blanc grapes,” is sponsoring a giveaway of thousands of single-ride MetroCards and $15 debit cards specially wired to work only with New York City taxicabs. Diddy is a co-sponsor.
Revelers should congregate in West Chelsea and the meatpacking district, where the cards will be distributed from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. “We should be pretty easily identifiable,” said Alexandra Sklansky, a publicist for the event. “The men will be in tuxedos, and the women in long black coats.”
Mr. Koch, reached by phone, said he had fond memories of the free New Year’s Eve rides during his time as mayor, although he attended the Times Square ball-drop only once or twice in his 12-year tenure. He said he knew to avoid that part of town on Dec. 31.
“To me, standing waiting for the ball to drop is not exactly an exciting moment in life,” Mr. Koch said.
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