Mexico City Metro Fares Go Up

An unusual thing happened the other day. The cost of a Mexico City Metro ticket went up from 2 pesos to 3 pesos.

At less than 25 U.S. cents for any distance, the Metro is one of the cheapest in the world – if not the cheapest – thanks to heavy subsidies applied by successive city governments since the first train ran in 1969.

Reluctance to put fares up -the increase is the first since 2002 – means that when the increases do come, they tend to be quite hefty in percentage terms. Over the 40 years of its existence, the Metro has gone up about half as much as inflation in general, but always in infrequent, quantum leaps.

In past years, news of the Metro going up would lead to long lines to stock up on tickets before the new fares  took effect. This time around there appeared to be less of a rush, although the ticket offices were said to be limiting sales to 20 tickets per person. The signs on the window announcing the increase explained that the actual cost per ride is more than 9 pesos. 

For those who have switched to the modern rechargeable electronic cards, this wasn’t exactly an option, at least not without regressing. The attempted joke that “I put 500 pesos on the card before the fares went up” drew reactions — from “oh, really” to “where did you get the 500 pesos from?”

It would take another Metro fan to conjure up the image of the commuter – head in a cloud, or nose in a book – getting halfway through a long ticket queue before realizing the pointlessness of the endeavor, and perhaps recharging the card anyway so the time didn’t appear wasted.