By Anupum Pant
This is funny and interestingly true at the same time. According to Eric M. Bram of New York, there’s an unspoken rough law that says – there’s a connection between the price trends of a pizza* and a subway ride ticket in the New York city.
Their prices have remained more or less same for about 50 years now, moving up and down together! If one goes up, the other has been seen to move in the same direction too. The trend has been observed to be more or less valid for the last half century.
Don’t ask why. I say, just go with the flow.
It was first observed in the year 1980 by Eric M. Bram. He observed that there was an uncanny similarity in the price of a slice of a pizza and a subway token in the year 1960, in the NYC – Both 15 cents.
In the 70s pizza started costing about 35 cents. So did the subway token! and so on…
Fairly recently, in the year 2002, when the price of pizza was about $2.00, and the price of a subway token was $1.50, it was predicted that the price of the subway ticket would rise. And as the “law” states, it did!
Again in the year 2005, the price of pizza went up to $2.25 and it was predicted that the subway token price would rise. It did again!
Once again in the year 2007. In 2013 the fare moved to $2.50, again just after the average pizza price had risen to the same price. No one probably knows why.
With 50 years of record, I’m pretty sure that the trend is going to keep up. Some one from the future, living in New York could confirm it in the comments section below.
So, if someone starts mass producing pizzas, floods the pizza market in the NYC, and drops the price, will the Subway ticket drop too? Someone should try that.
*When we say pizza here, specifically, we are talking about a plain tomato + mozarella + crust pizza only.
