The Perfect Way To Spend $50 Million

So about those holiday bargains the MTA doled out like Santa Claus (announced just before a crucial vote on a $2.9 billion transportation bond), of course people are taking advantage of the deal:

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has begun handing out commuter train passes as holiday gifts, and the festive response from some recipients has been: “Hmmm. I wonder how much I could get for this.”

Distribution of the passes, good for 10 rides during off-peak hours on the Metro-North Railroad or the Long Island Rail Road, began this week. They were sent out at no additional charge to buyers of December monthly passes, and already some of them have popped up for sale on the Internet, heralding a nascent black market.

“Leave it to New Yorkers to figure out how to make money from something that’s free,” said Mitchell H. Pally, an authority board member from Long Island.

The tickets, which can be used between any two stations on either rail system, have no face value but would normally sell for $36 to $123.

. . .

The authority is giving regular riders on Metro-North and the Long Island one free pass each, which is good for 10 trips during the middle of the day and late at night before March 1.

Those passes are transferable because the authority intended for its customers to give them to family members or friends. The admonition “not for resale” is stamped in the middle of each pass, and those words are clearly legible on one of the postings on eBay that seek to resell a Metro-North pass.

That pass, which went up for auction on Monday, had reached a price of $24.50 (plus $1 for postage) when the bidding closed last night. It drew 15 bids, starting at $15. Another pass was offered for a minimum bid of $19.99.

. . .

Mr. Pally, who voted against the holiday bonuses because he thought they were inappropriate and provided a better reward to subway riders than to suburban commuters, laughed like Santa Claus when told of the resale efforts.

“The hope is that somebody will use them; otherwise we will have gone through this whole thing for nothing,” he said. “From the M.T.A.’s perspective, it really doesn’t matter as long as somebody uses it and somebody benefits from it.”