Give NYC’s Essential Worker Free MTA Rides!

Yesterday, as we’ve worked together many times in the past, we came together, as Brooklyn Borough President and City Council Transportation Chair, representing Upper Manhattan/Bronx, to call for free fares for all essential workers on NYC’s public transit system. 

Despite subway and bus ridership declining by around 95 percent in recent weeks, essential workers, including grocery store workers, first responders, and health care personnel — more than 70 percent of whom being people of color — rely on mass transit to get around.

Please join us in showing your support for our workers by signing this petition and sending this message to MTA’s leadership:

“We stand with our essential workers in calling on MTA Chairman and CEO Patrick Foye to provide automatic free access to New York City Transit’s subways and buses for the duration of this COVID-19 crisis.

New York City’s workers are risking their health and the health of their loved ones every day as they continue to show up to do their jobs.

They stock our grocery shelves, answer our emergency calls, serve food in our schools and even operate the very transit system they are still paying to ride.

When we’re already asking so much of them — it’s just not fair to ask for fares.

We must do more than simply clap for essential workers at 7:00 PM each night.

We must care for them around the clock.

This is the least you can do.”