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Two things the federal govt should require as a condition of getting transit funds:

1) mandatory acceptance of some form of stored-value card, similar to the London Transport Oyster card, valid on any transit system that accepts Federal dollars. Cash fares still available (for those worried about being tracked, traced and otherwise afraid of Black Helicopters), but the stored-value card would give you a minimum of 10% off the cash fare (20% for buses, because it would significantly speed boarding time). The benefit is that you would be able to use this same card on basically any transit system nationwide. Arrive in San Francisco and walk onto the BART. You don't need to know how the fares work or what card you need to buy or how. Just use the card.

2) The card would then also make possible the following additional mandate: any two transit systems that accept federal $$ and have stations that are within a quarter mile of each other must have joint fares that essentially treat the two systems as one. So, in NYC, the NY subway system and the PATH trains would be treated as, and the public would come to regard them as, one system for the purpose of fares. I.e. one fare for both systems. The card would see you go out of one system and then immediately onto the other one and calculate a joint fare that's significantly cheaper than the two separate fares.

And joint fares would work transitively -- if systems A and B are close and systems B and C are close, then there must be joint fares from A to B to C that will essentially pull A, B and C together as a single system from a fare standpoint.

Public transit has network effects -- the more comprehensive the network, the more powerful it is. Yet US transit systems are typically balkanized -- little to no coordination between, say, BART and CalTrain in SF (and no such thing as a joint fare, so far as I know).

by enplaned on May 31, 2011 8:18 pm • link • report