Metro

Best of the worst: Readers pick fare-hike plan

Screw the base fare — just keep our monthly MetroCards as cheap as possible!

The most attractive of all the unattractive subway fare-hike options adds the smallest increase on weekly and monthly MetroCards — and tacks a 25- cent increase on the $2.25 base, according to a Post survey.

Nearly half — 46 percent — of the respondents in the online poll said the best alternative is the one that raises the price of a monthly MetroCard only from $104 to $109.

The popular-for-a-subway-fare-hike plan would keep the weekly card at its current rate of $29.

“As long as it doesn’t go to $125,” said graduate student Emily Crain, 23, referring to the most extreme of all the MTA’s four fare-hike plans.

The plan she and other riders overwhelmingly preferred also includes the extra quarter for the MetroCard base price.

It also calls for a $2.75 single- ride price, also up a quarter.

That proposal also eliminates the current 7 percent discount on pay-per-ride MetroCard purchases over $10.

Straphanger Wendy Sasser, 36, also picked that plan.

“The hike from $104 to $109 is not too bad,” said Sasser, who purchases a monthly MetroCard and shares it with her husband.

“But I would miss the [pay-per ride discount] savings.”

So did lots of other riders.

The second most popular option — which garnered 29 percent of nearly 900 votes — kept a shrunken bonus of 5 percent on pay-per-ride purchases over $10.

It also helps pay-per-ride users by keeping the base fare — which is deducted with every swipe — at $2.25.

That plan involves the biggest hit to monthly MetroCard riders, sending the price soaring by $21, from $104 to $125. The weekly rockets from $29 to $34.

The third-place plan — which got 15 percent of the votes — keeps the pay-per-ride MetroCard discount at 7 percent.

But it also raises the base fare to $2.50, possibly making it a less attractive option for those who pay by the swipe.

The plan that got the least number of votes — a mere 10 percent — involved leaving the base fare at $2.25 and hiking the monthly and weekly Metrocards to $119 and $32, respectively.

The MTA said it won’t choose a plan until after a series of public hearings next month.

The hikes go into effect in March.

MTA Chairman Joseph Lhota said that the final plan — which needs to rake in $450 million for the agency — could end up being a hybrid of several proposals.

The deeply unpopular hikes are necessary to pay for rising fixed costs, like pension and debt service, he said.