Comments on Metro's proposed monthly pass could serve more riders - Greater Greater Washington

Comment by Kim

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 17:55:14 EDT

I'm not sure the juice is worth the squeeze here given WMATA's assertion that the pass would be paper. The idea is to make things easier, but the paper pass works in the opposite direction.

Cheaper is good if it's as easy, but given telework and compressed work schedules and sick days and work travel, ten commutes a week isn't as common as it used to be.

Comment by Steve Yaffe

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 12:09:35 EDT

Too many bus riders are passing up the best deal in town ($15 7-day regional bus pass) because they won't get a SmarTrip card. This pass is only available using a SmarTrip card (no paper) and can not be purchased on a bus. People paying cash on the bus or adding cash to their SmarTrip card on the bus slow the bus down by adding dwell time. The big majority of these people are low-income riders (as shown in the 2008 Regional Bus Study results) who need to be included in this discussion.

Comment by Michael Perkins

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 23:25:47 EDT

@James: I think this is an argument about fare levels rather than passes. The pass prices are designed based on the overall fare levels here, which are higher than in NYC.

Comment by James

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 17:02:19 EDT

@Michael Perkins

I think that DC should have a congestion charge, but even so, this is still dramatically more expensive than an unlimited MetroCard in NYC, which is one of the world's great transit bargains. And NY does not have congestion pricing.

Comment by Michael Perkins

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 15:09:55 EDT

@James: As soon as DC has a congestion charge to support transit, I'm sure there will be money to bring down fares.

@beatbxo: You don't need to register your smartrip card if you don't want to. And switching to the sturdier cards would require a wholesale replacement of all equipment.

Comment by beatbxo

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:04:57 EDT

Am I the only one that doesn't like SmartTrip cards? I resent having to pay $5 for it and resent the tracking.

Why does Metro feel the need to re-invent the wheel here? Us the sturdier cards like NYC and Chicago do. Problem solved.

Comment by James

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 10:39:41 EDT

Wow -- what a ripoff! Over $200?! In London, 112 pounds (about $178 USD) buys you access to the robust network of stations in zones 1 and 2 of the city (a massive area, including more stations than the entirety of Washington's Metro), as well as unlimited rides on the city's extremely robust bus network. Oh, it's also for a MONTH, not 28 silly days. And things get even cheaper if you buy an annual pass.

It's appalling that this Metrorail-only pass will cost more than a pass in one of the world's most expensive cities, and not even include bus rides.

Comment by Laura

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 19:16:55 EDT

@Michael Perkins - Thanks for the response. For the record, I'm in favor of the monthly pass and think it is a good idea generally.

Comment by Michael Perkins

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 18:34:05 EDT

@Laura, AM: I think the difference between a 10% bonus and unlimited ride passes is that the 10% bonus is available even to people that don't ride that much (you can buy $20 in fare and leave it on your card for years), whereas the benefit to riders with passes is available only for people who ride more than just commuting.

Also, with the fare bonus additional trips are slightly discounted but still cost something, whereas with unlimited ride passes additional trips are already paid for and feel "free" (or at least heavily discounted).

The other thing is that with passes, there's a chance that someone buys a pass for a whole month and doesn't end up using it enough to have made it a good deal for them. If you can subscribe to passes, this would be more likely as people might put their pass on autopilot. Compare this to the fare bonus where it is automatically a discount for the customer regardless of how much or how little you ride.

The fare discount program would require a large increase in general fare levels to balance out, and doesn't enhance many policy goals, while an unlimited pass program requires a smaller increase in general fares and enhances the policy goals of having zero marginal cost for transit trips and rewarding frequent customers.

Comment by Laura

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 16:33:13 EDT

@AM - They used to offer a 10% bonus if you added $20 or more to your card, but they did away with it some years ago (I don't remember exactly when). It would be interesting for someone to do the math regarding money lost/gained for Metro if they just re-instituted the 10% bonus or something similar.

Comment by AM

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 15:32:13 EDT

I think the whole point of passes is to allow riders to get more value for their money. In New York, when you add more than $10 to your pay per use MetroCard, you get a 7% bonus. Assuming nothing changes with Smartrip cards and there are no passes you can load to your Smartrip, what if WMATA implemented a similar policy (although I doubt they will be that generous, but even a 5% bonus for a $100 add to SmartTrip would be awesome!)

If you do the math, Metro would lose less money as opposed to allowing unlimited weekend trips with a monthly pass and riders could still get a couple free weekend rides per month...

Comment by Michael Perkins

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 13:48:54 EDT

@charlie: her new fare is going to be $2.10, by the way.

Comment by James

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 13:31:03 EDT

As someone who has used short trip week passes for years, I can honestly say I was excited for the 4-week option until I heard it was going to be paper, sometimes at the end of one week my card has seen better days, and to think that it has to be used for three more weeks! If they moved to a plastic-y paper card like NYC than it would be fine, but I'm sure that would be to costly to replace all the fare machines in each station to do that.

Comment by charlie

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 13:19:46 EDT

@Mperkins; my bad. Big difference. So 86 vs 84.

Comment by Michael Perkins

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 13:13:10 EDT

@charlie: check your math. twice $2.10 is $4.20 a day.

Comment by charlie

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 13:09:37 EDT

So, my GF is typical federal worker in DC. She gets the transit benefit; which would be 2.15 for a fare in the AM and PM. 5.30 a day, maybe $106 a month.

And, again, that is for someone living and working in DC, and thus not ultilizing the full value of the federal benefit.

Under your proposal, she would qualify for the short or very short pass. Why the difference between 2.15 and 2.10 in fare I don't know. So let's go with the very short pass, at $84 a month.

That is going to be loss to WMATA of $22 a month.

I have no idea how that scales out. I've seen a lot of numbers about the number of workers getting the federal benefit, but not how many don't get the full amount and use WMATA -- as opposed to another agency.

Perhaps a better way to frame the pass is to capture more money from other agencies -- if they offered a max pass where people who use commuter buses/trains buy a WMATA pass first?

Comment by Matt Johnson

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 12:58:28 EDT

@Phil:
We didn't argue that a zone system was too complex. We argued that it was almost as complex as a graduated fare system and that the tradeoffs would hit many riders hard.

http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/9261/should-metro-switch-to-zones-no/

Comment by Michael Perkins

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 12:57:51 EDT

@em: Proposed peak boarding charge is $2.10 in the latest docket. The peak of the peak surcharge is proposed for elimination. Therefore, the $2.10 pass would cover the boarding charge at any time.

@Dave Murphy: These pass prices are based on the proposed fare structure after the fare increase expected in July. I would expect the price of the TLC to increase at the same time.

@everyone offering ideas for zone fares or simplified fare system: This proposal is for a pass system that works with our existing fare system. Since a complete fare system overhaul is not on the table for this budget season, I limited the proposal to what could actually be implemented in July.

@Nopass: There's a $15 weekly bus pass that's a pretty good deal. Unfortunately, combining bus and rail on one pass comes with a lot of complexity. My Smart Pass proposal covers this complexity but unfortunately I don't think Metro is there yet. It doesn't help that the bus and rail systems are essentially separate fare systems and budgets. If you look at the way Metro is structured, Bus and Rail are not very well integrated, from operations all the way to fares and budgeting.

@charlie: In terms of "which purse" the extra would come out of, it should follow the same rule as fares today. That comes from the transit-only purse first, then from the undesignated purse second.

Comment by Richard Layman

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 12:50:42 EDT

I agree with Phil wrt zones. The outer parts of the system function like commuter rail, the inner parts don't. A pass system should recognize the difference.

wrt Dave Murphy's point, I agree but the fact is that the MARC prices are going to increase. According to the WMATA site, it says that the subway portion for unlimited service costs $102/month. Recognize that the MARC monthly pass already includes "free" additional access to MTA subway, regular bus, and light rail, regular Metrobus, and RideOn.

- http://www.wmata.com/fares/purchase/passes.cfm#link

Comment by Em

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 12:49:13 EDT

The very short pass (</= $2.10) is useless, since the minimum peak of peak fare is $2.15. We already know that the peak of the peak doesn't actually force people to avoid that time, it just makes them annoyed. Why would I want to buy a pass and then still have to pay $0.05 every time I take a trip during peak of the peak? It really would be nickel and diming people...

Comment by Joe

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 12:47:36 EDT

Why is Metro using such inefficient and outdated Smarttrip software that they can't put a monthly pass on it. Chicago introduced that EIGHT YEARS ago. Does Metro plan for anything?

Comment by jnb

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 12:33:55 EDT

Look, this is pretty simple. The pass as proposed would be a benefit to customers and would make transit use easier and cheaper. The two key questions are: 1) how much would such a pass cost Metro in revenue in net (lost revenues and service increases to meet demand); and 2) does the Board feel the benefits to riders are worth the budget risk?

Question 1 requires analysis to determine the magnitude of the revenue risk, which is inherently tricky to forecast because there's limited data for WMATA to use to predict likely outcomes

Question 2 requires Board members to do policy analysis: are the benefits to customers and businesses from the pass worth the possible increase in subsidies required for Metro?

Comment by Alex B.

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 12:05:17 EDT

While a choose-your-own-value pass is ideal, Metro believes it's too technically complex to implement.

I think Metro is being honest here. The complexity required is part of the underlying complexity in the fare structure.

The solution is for Metro to simplify their overly complex fare structure. Perkins has long advocated passes as a way to bypass that complexity, but passes have their own merit. The solution requires simplification of the fare structure while also offering passes.

A straight-up zone system isn't likely a good fit, but Metro could stay true to the existing fare principles by simply reducing the number of possible fare permutations.

Round every rail fare to the nearest 50 cents. So, your potential rail fare, instead of being any possible combination of 5 cent increments from 1.60 to $5.00 (or higher, with increases) would be one of:

2.00, 2.50, 3.00, 3.50, 4.00, 4.50, 5.00, 5.50.

Or use whatever break points would work better. The point is that any given peak trip would have 8 possible fares, rather than dozens, each in five cent increments.

Thus, the variable pass structure that Perkins has proposed would only have 8 pass permutations to chose from, instead of hundreds.

You'd still have peak and off-peak, you'd still have fares based on distance, but they'd be easier to understand and easier to collect.

Comment by Phil

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 11:48:48 EDT

GGW always seems to shoot down the zone idea as being too complex, but honestly this is just incredibly subjective. A rigid zoning system is easier to understand, less vague, and easy to accurately price. It would also allow for an easy implementation of unlimited passes of all sorts.

Comment by Dave Murphy

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 11:26:19 EDT

Excellent point about the price of monthly passes.

The cost of a 28 day pass is actually greater than the cost of a DC-New Carrollton TLC pass, which would give unlimited use to not only the Metro but any service that takes SmarTrip in DC or Baltimore... plus it would be unlimited rides on MARC to New Carrollton and discounted rides anywhere else.

At $202 a month for a TLC, why on earth would anyone get a 28 day pass that only works on Metro and costs $8 more?

Comment by NoPass

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 11:26:09 EDT

What word doesn't appear in this article? Bus.

Comment by charlie

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 11:14:19 EDT

some typical negative teen-ager style pushback:

1. You've address the pricing issue in MPerkins last post on this, so I won't rehash it here. And you're not even making the argument, which is probably better. But the rewards to WMATA, as I see it, are rewarding customers and increasing off peak. I don't see WMATA wanting to reward customers. And it is very unclear to me whether they want to increase off peak traffic. Yes, I go back to lower off-peak fares as a better tool for that, but I don't want to go too off track.

2. From readint between the lines, I got impression that WMATA though passes were not posible on the current smartrip software. I don't see you addressing that problem -- if it is real.

3. Buckets. As I understand it now, you have 3 buckets on smartrip. Transit benefit, parking and personal travel money. Given a huge bulk of metro customers get either the federal benefit or the transit benefit, where does that money dip into? And for that matter, would federal benefit users get to buy passes -- which would defeat the entire purpose unless the pass was MORE expensive than the benefit they were receiving.

Comment by tom veil

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 11:10:46 EDT

Good article.
There's another reason why it's essential that the monthly pass be on SmarTrip: employee transit benefits. Virtually all Federal agencies now require employees to use SmarTrip cards that are, technically, owned by their agency in order to receive WMATA transit benefits. Many private companies do the same. A SmarTrip-only benefit package, because it's electronic and traceable, is easier for the accountants and reduces the risk of graft.

Comment by MJ

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 11:06:37 EDT

Very interesting ideas. Clearly lots of thought has gone into this. Unfortunately, that itself is telling. Using mass transit--and justifying using mass transit--should require little or no thought. Accessibility means ease of use, and metro completely fails in that regard. Makes me want to walk, bike, drive, cab or somersault to my destination. Anything is better than metro.