The Sound Transit board is considering hiking fares by 25 cents for light rail in June of 2011. Here’s a comparison:
It isn’t a big change, but Sound Transit estimates that hiking fares would generate more money while losing a few riders. Officials explain in a fare analysis (.pdf) that the move would increase overall fare revenue by 2.5 percent (about $50,000 a month), but could deter about 1.2 percent of the riders (about 17,000 riders monthly). The transit board will also consider increasing bus fares by as much as $1 a trip.
I’m all for this on one condition: The light rail trains—just like all the buses—should be free in the downtown transit tunnel.
Here’s an idea- how about figuring out a way to enforce fares on the light-rail…? Because you can raise the rates all you want, but it doesn’t do a damn bit of good if nobody’s paying them.
Everything that’s free attracts users who “don’t really need it” whether it’s free parking at park n rides, or free freeways or a free bus zone downtown or free light rail downtown.
Yes, a third of the traffic on 99 today doesn’t really even need to make the trip but because we provide a free viaduct they use it. This traffic will disappear if the viaduct is gone. Same thing will happen if we make the light rail free downtown, some portion o the users won’t have a transportation purpose but will use it for daytime housing, sleeping, and just migrating north to south.
Good god man, downtown is only a 20 minute walk from belltown to courthouse anyway!
And remember the old streetcar network died because they didn’t keep fares high enough to maintain it.
@2: Are you saying a third of traffic on 99 are just out joyriding? They’re not on their way to someplace? And people are going to use the train for seven minutes of housing and sleeping from Westlake to Int’l Dist? I ride the tunnel from end to end on a regular basis, and I never see someone set up camp at one end, nap, then deboard at the other end.
People like the free zone because it can easily get you from one end of downtown to the other in a few minutes, instead of 20. Especially nice when the weather is bad and when you’re in a hurry.
The old street car network didn’t die “because they didn’t keep fares high enough to maintain it”. No public transit system is ever fully funded by fares alone.
The free zone is a bad idea for buses, worse for light rail.
1) Enforcement.
No one traveling intra-city is paying. Sound Transit lives in a bubble. Look at other cities around the world. Fare evading citations are huge money makers. More than pays for the officers. Fare evaders sometimes turn violent so using security rent-a-cops may not work.
2) Raise the fares from the airport.
$2.50 each way is an amazing bargin for the average tourist/business traveler unless you have a big family. Keep fares from central to south Seattle the same or lower so more people ride/actually pay the fare. Paying a premium to/from the airport makes perfect sense.
@5: [In San Francisco] “The city had 50 fare inspectors as of January 2009, who earn $35 an hour. This adds up to about $3.6 million a year. The agency collects $900,000 a year in fare evasion penalties, officials said Thursday, and has no metric to determine whether or not the fare inspection program encourages riders to pay up.”
http://tinyurl.com/ybnxrav
If people are only riding within the transit tunnel (ie a few blocks), why would they need to take the light rail train? Just hop on one of the more-numerous buses passing through. Or you’re suggesting they hop on in the free zone and stay on, and never pay, which is the thing that has caused so many problems for Metro. Great idea.
I actually ride the light rail almost every workday, and I get my fare checked on average three times a week.
The downtown tunnel should NOT be free. It needs to be turnstiled (as do the rest of the light rail stations) so people aren’t freeloading on the train. Leave the downtown street surface buses free.
@7, It’s not a matter of *need* to use the train to go the few blocks through the tunnel, it’s a matter of convenience, to not have to wait for the next bus, when the train is going to the same place anyhow.
@9 Spot checks are much more efficient than turnstiles. Sure you lose a bit more on fares, but you save a ton on maintenance and equipment. Plus many light rail stations would be hard to turnstile, at least without making them much less appealing, especially since you could just walk a couple feet on the tracks and then hop up on the platform no matter what they do.
The current system works rather well and fare evasion on light rail is not a huge problem.
I’ve seen fare inspectors in SODO a few times now. One even had a machine to read the balance on my ORCA card but wasn’t /quite/ sure what the output meant.
I’ve had my fare checked every time I’ve been on it. The last time we went to the airport we were checked twice.
@9: Why should the tunnel not be free?
You say it needs to have turnstiles. Why? SoundTransit has said that the installation, operation and maintenance turnstiles cost significantly more than using the honor system and fare enforcement officers.
And what’s so bad about “freeloading” on the train, just like we do on the buses in the tunnel?
If you make them free you’ll have even more gangs roaming in the bus tunnel.
Which means, since Mark Sidran is back in the form of Tim Burgess, it won’t happen.
What the hell. We only have one light rail line that has been operating all of 9 months and they are already hiking the fare? Between my wife and I we probably ride the rail 14 times a week. I have had my fair checked maybe 5 times and talked to plenty of free-loaders.
The problem is that as the system expands, cost is only going to increase. If they are going to increase fares now, they will have little room to do so in the future without seriously deterring people from riding. This news is already causing me to reconsider riding my bike more regularly. Bogus, bogus bogus bogus.
@9,
I’m not quite sure how one would do that since buses and light rail don’t cost the same.
@6 Having seen San Francisco’s transit staff at work, and I think most would agree with me, I hardly think that their system is a good measure of transit efficiency. At $35 per hour they should be writing out a ton of tickets each hour but much of their system is not an honor system.
It is good to hear that they are actually enforcing the fares.
Since buses and trains share the same tunnel, and we spent a lot of money to make that work, the turnstile thing just isn’t going to happen.
Again, as someone that would always use Light Rail to go to and from the airport raise the rates more at the airport and maybe make a special family rate or something.
The newspaper already reported in the past that many people in South Seattle refuse to use the light rail because the bus is a “colorful part of daily life”. Seems like a silly excuse but whatever.
@17, you could do it if you forced everyone to use ORCA, and require a minimum balance equal to the lowest possible fare at the turnstile to enter the system, and then deducted the balance at the departure point. That’s what they do on BART.
Folks wanting to ride free get off when an inspector gets on and catch the next train. The inspectors rarely ride the full route either way, they are there for spot checks and the free-riders know the system.
I wonder how many transit fans will be at the 520 hearing on the bridge design (and whether it has light rail) tonight at 6 pm?
@20, most of the fare-checkers I’ve seen already had their mark in their sights. They know the system too. They check everybody else out of fairness, but they know who the fare-jumpers are.
@19,
Granted, I haven’t been on BART for a long time, but don’t they take all of it when you exit?
ORCA is complicated enough as it is. Try explaining to a bus driver when you have a non-peak pass with an E-Purse to cover the additional $0.25. I’ve almost been denied a ride a few times (over fucking 25 cents!) because bus drivers do not understand the system. Your plan would confuse them even more.
Seattle “big wigs” dont want you driving your car into the downtown, but they are making it even more costly to take the light rail in. Light rail was supposed to revitalize, stimulate the south king county and to this they are going to raise the rate $.50 per trip for the those in the furthest portion of light rail. If the fare increase will go for a REAL security service to protect the riders then I am all for it, but to increase the pockets of the “big wigs’, NO! If you need more money for lower ridership you should have thought further ahead then your nose and created parking lots. I have no idea why Seattle HATES cars! And takes that hatred out on its citizens with no parking and higher rates.