New Jersey’s state train system, NJ Transit, is planning to hike its train fares from New York’s Penn Station to East Rutherford’s MetLife Stadium a whopping 775 percent during the coming World Cup, according to reports.
MetLife Stadium is scheduled to host eight FIFA World Cup games, but officials are ready to charge New Yorkers and soccer enthusiasts $100 per ticket, the New York Post reports.
Tickets to travel from Penn Station to MetLife are usually only $12.90 per person, but NJ Transit officials see an opportunity to rake in the cash for the Cup games.
An NJ Transit official told the media that ticket prices are not yet set.
“The ticket prices for match day travel have not been finalized, and any reference to cost would be unconfirmed speculation,” an NJ Transit statement read. “However, as the governor clearly stated at an earlier press conference this morning with NJ Transit, the cost for the eight matches will not be borne by our regular commuters.”
Still, New Jersey Democrats have their hungry eyes on soccer fans’ wallets.
Democrat Gov. Mikie Sherrill had insisted that the state of New Jersey would not somehow be forced to foot the bill for the heightened traffic the games would create.
“We are not going to be paying for moving the people who are viewing the World Cup on the back of New Jersey taxpayers and New Jersey commuters,” she insisted on Monday.
But sensing a massive financial windfall, Sherrill has also suggested that she supports raising the state’s sales tax to 9.6 percent ahead of the games and wants to put a 2.5 percent surcharge on hotels, more taxes on betting, and a new tax on Uber, Lyft, and other rideshare companies to further bleed World Cup visitors.
Clearly, Gov. Sherrill and her Democrat cohorts see the World Cup as just another cash cow that they can milk dry.
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