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.