Fare hike loses more riders than necessary

The most recent budget proposal from the General Manager makes great strides to reduce service cuts, but as a recent letter from transit advocates argues, the proposed fare increase will still drain away more riders than necessary.

The fare increase instead “follows the politically expedient approach of across-the-board fare increases,” the letter argues. Yet 40% of peak riders work for federal agencies and get free transit. Peak trains and many buses are overcrowded while there’s plenty of room at other times.

Therefore, it would be better to raise fares where riders can better afford it and are less likely to abandon transit, and particularly where trains are already filled to capacity. It makes less sense to raise fares where there is already excess capacity and where projections estimate heavy losses in ridership.

Besides just raising revenue, the letter, signed by Allen Greenberg of MetroRiders.Org, Michael Perkins of Greater Greater Washington, and Cheryl Cort of the Coalition for Smarter Growth, argues for targeting fare policy in ways that achieve four objectives:

1. Maximize the number of transit trips for each dollar of operating assistance;
2. Maximize use of existing capacity;
3. Collect revenue efficiently (e.g., increase SmarTrip use to reduce system costs and operational delays); and
4. Maintain jurisdictional and social equity.

The advocates specifically recommend modifying the fare proposal in these ways:

• Charge 50¢ for peak-of-the-peak trips (during the busiest 1½ hours in the morning and evening rush) instead of 10¢ as proposed by the General Manager. However, only apply this to rail trips that traverse the congested core. This would encourage peak riders in the busiest areas to ride when trains are a bit less crowded.
• Charge 25¢ for peak-of-the-peak trips on bus during the same time as the peak-of-the-peak rail surcharge. This would avoid riders to shifting from rail to bus and also spread peak bus ridership. To avoid double-charging customers who transfer, increase the transfer discount by 25¢ during the peak-of-the-peak time.
• Increase the differential between cash and SmarTrip on buses beyond the current and small 10¢. This would discourage cash payment and significantly speed boardings.
• Concentrate parking price increases at stations that get filled up and which have waiting lists for Monthly Reserved Parking, rather than simply raising charges across the board by 50¢ per day and $5 for reserved. For example, charge $1.15 more for lots with 100% or higher utilization, 50¢ for lots with utilization rates between 85 and 100%, and zero for less filled lots. Similarly, increase Monthly Reserved Parking by $10 where there are waiting lists, but zero elsewhere.
• Scale back the proposed $4 flat fare for Metrorail after midnight, which creates a strong disincentive for short-range late-night riders to take rail when cabs would be cheaper, especially for large groups. Instead, return to the Catoe proposal to charge the peak rush-hour fare at night.

The letter does commend some fare proposals, including creating a differential between paper farecards and SmarTrip on rail, reducing transfer periods to two hours, raising fares on airport buses, and MetroAccess fare changes.

With the revenue raised from these proposals, WMATA could reduce other fare hikes, including off-peak fares on rail and, especially, bus:

We believe that off-peak fare increases, for rail and bus, should be kept to a minimum, below the levels proposed by the General Manager, as the magnitude of the proposed increases would result in substantial ridership losses per dollar raised during times when there is excess system capacity. Substantially increasing off-peak bus fares, in particular, would hit some of Metro’s poorest riders the hardest.

Bus fares are increasing by a greater percentage (20%) than rail fares (15%), and long-distance rail fares even less (11%). Like the parking, the bike locker rentals are similarly untargeted. At the very least, Metro should release bike locker utilization rates before and after any increase so we can determine whether that hike is beneficial or harmful.

Some have raised concerns that peak-of-the-peak bus fares would generate arguments between riders and bus drivers. The solution would be to set the SmarTrip-cash differential on bus higher than the peak-of-the-peak charge, so that cash users always pay the same flat rate, SmarTrip users get a discount, and if riding off-peak, SmarTrip users get an even larger discount.