Yes please!

by inlogan on Sep 10, 2010 3:31 pm  

In a Facebook exchange, Metro reported that riders using passes will not be allowed the normal $0.50 discount when transferring between rail and bus or vice versa.

It is my understanding as a bus rider that the .35 transfer had gone the way of the paper transfer.

I protested the disappearance of the paper transfer a lot at the time, though I knew it would not make much difference to this blog's users.

by Jazzy on Sep 10, 2010 4:38 pm  

This will not qualify as a helpful comment, but I really get the feeling sometime WMATA does not want poor people on the rails.

But this would apply to the $11 bus pass, no? How would they give you a discount anyway?

by charlie on Sep 10, 2010 4:40 pm  

They used to, Charlie. They used to give paper transfers, and their onboard bus money machines used to be much more accepting of ... cash and coin (aka money). No longer. And, they used to give a discount whenever you purchased $20 worth of fare at a machine in the metro station.

I wonder - can you still buy the bus flash pass?

by Jazzy on Sep 10, 2010 4:43 pm  

@Jazzy: Eliminating the paper transfers reduced metro's costs and reduced fraud. The free bus transfers are available to riders that use a Smartrip card or the flash pass. Those two methods are the vast majority of trips taken on the bus system.

@Charlie: I think Metro is agnostic about who rides either kind of transit. They run the system that the Board funds, at fares that the Board sets. We used to have the same base fare for bus and rail. At that point, would you say Metro didn't want poor people on the trains? Probably not.

Then, when it came time for fare increases, DC fought repeatedly for no bus fare increase, and rail fares increased significantly compared to bus. Now we have higher rail fares than bus.

So our fare system tends to lock poor users into using the bus only, but the differences in fares were the result of policies that were intended to limit the effect of fare increases on the poor.

The $11 flash pass became the $15 flash pass when the bus fares were raised to $1.50. It's still available. Metro is piloting putting those passes on Smartrip. It could be part of the programming to have a transfer discount from bus to rail using the flash pass.

@Jazzy, don't the fareboxes still take bills and coins? Flash pass is still available, I see them all the time.

by Michael Perkins on Sep 11, 2010 9:05 am  

The free bus transfers are available to riders that use a Smartrip card or the flash pass.

Are you sure? I am not in a position currently to know. But I think this needs to be double checked. Last time I tried to get the transfer, I could not, and someone on the bus told me that they'd been gone for a while (no more rail to bus transfers). Used to be that .35 was taken off your card.

And by flash pass you are of course talking about the flash pass on the Smart Card.

by Jazzy on Sep 11, 2010 10:12 am  

Didn't finish reading your post....

Ok, good to know that the paper flash passes are still available (you were talking about the paper ones too right?).

And yes, the fareboxes of course still take cash, but they don't suck in the bills as quickly and efficiently as they used to, not by a long shot, and the coins are often a problem. And they no longer take pennies. Sure there's lots of eye rolling at that from commenters here, but people who are just making ends meet counted on pennies to use the bus. Sorry but it is true.

by Jazzy on Sep 11, 2010 10:15 am  

The point about the disparity between rail and bus fares is a good one: it was a conscious policy, backed by the District government. Perhaps it is time to turn over Metrobus within the District to the DC government and let them run it the way Ride-On, Dash, etc. are run by the municipalities they serve. Let Metro run the rails and the bus lines that cross jurisdictions and let the District spend itself into Federal receivership again if they so choose.

by Dave J on Sep 12, 2010 11:41 am  

Doing away with the transfer to the buses for day pass users is a fare increase.

Doesn't METRO have to have public hearings for fare increases? Did they follow the rules for a fare increase.

The same could be said for the paying for parking when using a day pass.

by Bob F on Sep 12, 2010 1:53 pm  

As I said, my comment about not putting poor people on trains is more frustration than anything else: fully cognizant it is not constructive.

That being said, the role of the federal transit subidy is there as well; WMATA has a free hand in raising fares on rail because a large number of riders don't pay for it. I've seen 40% of rush hour passengers? Not sure what the figures for bus are but probably much lower.

And I do think DaveJ's suggestion that we need to kill WMATA bus service and let local jurisdictions run buses is valid. DDOT has done more innovation with circulator than WMATA. And bus has high labor costs, which is killing everyone.

But I still do see how a bus bas on smarttrip would work. I hit the ST on the us, exit, then go to a metro station -- and then it recognizes that I was recently on a bus and gives me a 50 cent discount?

Would not be surprised if there is a disconnect in the computer system. My smarttrip is dying, and often doesn't seem to register at exit. I then ride the bus for a while -- sometimes a week, and reload money, but then it refuses to let me enter a rail system because it didn't record an exit.

by charlie on Sep 12, 2010 5:39 pm  

If that is the policy, then it is a change from how the passes worked during the pilot. Using the bus pass pilot program, I got discounted subway fare the two times I transferred to it. If this wasn't going to be the case, they really should have set up the pilot program in that capacity.

by Wes on Sep 12, 2010 7:38 pm  

I don't think my question has been answered yet. I am not sure the rail to bus transfer IS actually working. See my post at 10:12 a.m. on Sept 11.

by Jazzy on Sep 13, 2010 6:20 am  

@Jazzy: I get the rail to bus transfer twice a week when I transfer from the Orange line to Fairfax Connector 553. I'm not using passes, though.

@Wes, this is good to hear. Are you a bus pass pilot participant? I'd like to hear how it's working. Please email me using my author's link above?

@Charlie: I think you have the right idea for how using a bus pass to transfer to rail would work. Transferring from a free bus ride to rail would get you the discount (though you would still have to pay the remainder of the rail fare from stored value).

@Bob F: It's a fare increase to you and to me, but if you read the words in the WMATA Tariff (the legal document that sets out what people need to pay), the words are squishy enough that either interpretation could be followed. And unfortunately, the tariff is what governs what is a fare increase.

See http://www.wmata.com/about_metro/docs/FINAL_Tariff_29_Eff_08.29.10.PDF

A portion of this reads: "Patrons that board Metrobus using a flash pass are not eligible for a Smartrip based transfer". That's less squishy than it used to be.

@Jazzy: The flash pass obviously offers free transfers from bus to bus, because you show it to the driver each time, and you get to board for no charge. From my experience, transferring between buses using a Smartrip card gives a free transfer, although I don't transfer between buses frequently.

by Michael Perkins on Sep 13, 2010 8:45 am  

Speak of bus transfers remember when they got rid of the paper ones they touted the smartrip transfers in having rail-bus and bus-rail transfers plus 3 hours instead of 2. Funny how the first thing that was cut was the 3 hours back to 2 when they had a funds problem that sounds like a bait and switch tacit to me

by kk on Sep 13, 2010 9:11 am  

Thank you Michael. Let me rephrase the question to be as clear as possible just because I think I've confused things by bringing up different topics in the same thread.

Not using any kind of passes, just using a smart trip card only, and traveling WITHIN THE DISTRICT only, when you go from rail to bus, do you pay .35 (of old), or the regular fare? (Paying the .35 is of course the transfer fare.)

I don't think there are many District-only bus riders on this blog, but we'll see how many can answer my question.

Thanks.

by Jazzy on Sep 13, 2010 9:38 am  

@Jazzy, the official policy is to pay 50 cents less than the regular smartrip bus fare when transferring from rail to bus using a smartrip card, and to pay 50 cents less than the smartrip rail fare when transferring from bus to rail using a smartrip card.

The $0.35 transfer fare was eliminated when Smartrip transfers were introduced and paper transfer tickets were eliminated, I believe in 2008. The $0.35 transfer fare was a 90 cent discount applied in only one direction. The replacement was a 50 cent discount applied in either direction.

This is official policy. I have seen the transfer discount properly applied on Fairfax Connector and Circulator buses, but I don't remember checking the last time I rode the 90s.

by Michael Perkins on Sep 13, 2010 9:49 am  

Long story short, you should be paying $1.00 to board a regular bus when transferring from rail using Smartrip.

@kk, agree. Which fare do you think Metro should raise to make up the money saved by reducing the transfer window? It's one thing to complain about a policy being changed for the worse, but without the money to fund it there's little Metro can do.

by Michael Perkins on Sep 13, 2010 9:52 am  

@Michael Perkins

I think that they should have kept the 3 hours and instead of the 50 cents discount maybe 30 or 40 cent discount that way people are getting what was promised which was an increase to 3 hours.

People should have said either give us the 3 hour transfer or bring back paper transfers since they broke there promise when there were other options.

Its all still better than the In and Out transfers that they used to have. It used to be that if you had a transfer that said in/out you could only travel a certain direction on that transfer but it would get f**ked up when you took a circular route such as the U4, U6 or M16 which were circular when this was in effect (they had different routes) about 15 years ago.

I remember b***hing to them for years about that.

by kk on Sep 13, 2010 5:30 pm  

The weekly bus pass is just what it says. It's not a bus rail pass and doesn't report to be one. The bus pass is priced at the cost of 10 weekly trips but can be used as much as you like. Rail has two similar products a short trip pass and the fast pass. None of these passes allow for transfer between modes. The average bus fare remains bellow $1.00 and the average rail fare is in the $2.25 range. If you are daily bus rail commuter then perhaps the bus pass doesn't work for you. If you primarily ride the bus, then the more you ride the bigger the discount.

by Interested on Sep 14, 2010 9:26 am