Transit

Paper bus passes extended through January

by Erik Weber   •   January 6, 2011 1:47 pm

Though they had initially announced January 2, 2011 as the end date, WMATA has extended the life of paper bus passes through January 29. After that date, area buses will no longer accept weekly paper bus passes.

Photo by slack13 on Flickr.

The paper pass reprieve comes as a result of "unforeseen technical issues," according to WMATA's Ron Holzer. ART announced the extension in a press release last month, while WMATA made no announcement of the change. The "flash-passes" are being discontinued after the October introduction of an electronic version that can be loaded on customers' SmarTrip cards.

The electronic passes will have the same $15 price tag, assuming riders already own a SmarTrip card. They can be purchased at the Metro customer service center as well as at area retailers, mostly CVS pharmacies, where you can already reload your regular SmarTrip credit.

The passes will have several benefits: two weeks can be loaded simultaneously, and they will be valid for 7 days from first use, rather than a strict Sunday to Saturday schedule, which was the case with the old paper passes.

The passes can also be used on most of the region's bus services, including Metrobus, Circulator, Ride On, DASH, CUE, and ART. The Circulator will continue to sell $11 Circulator-only weekly passes on the CommuterDirect online store, while DASH will continue their $35 monthly passes.

WMATA has had notices posted in buses for some weeks now, though they still list January 2nd as the end date. Holzer said WMATA has been playing audible announcements as well, though I have yet to hear one.

The extended grace period may help ease the transition for riders to switch to electronic passes voluntarily, since, as of early December, Metro was still selling 32,000 weekly paper bus passes, and only 300 SmarTrip-based passes.

Although it will be loaded on riders' SmarTrip cards, the new electronic passes do not give a bus-to-rail transfer discount, according to Holzer.

Given the December sales number, a January 2nd transition may have proved rough, resulting in a spike in unintentional fare evasion, so the extension of paper passes will probably save the transit agencies some money. In the long run, the electronic passes will ideally cut down on fraud and fare evasion using forged or expired flash passes. It will also put the onus more heavily on bus operators to enforce fare payment.

With an extra month to prepare riders for the end date, hopefully area transit agencies will step up their efforts to educate riders about the change and encourage them to switch to SmarTrip passes early.

Despite the extra grace period, the switch still presents problems. Paper bus passes were available at a multitude of local stores around the region. Because the new passes are electronic, they can only be bought at retail locations with SmarTrip machines, primarily CVS stores.

Though there are hundreds of these in the region, they are not very evenly distributed with only 7 locations each in Northeast and Southeast and only 4 in Southwest, compared to 56 in Northwest. The areas that are least served by Metro, and therefore most dependent on bus service, generally lack any meaningful density of these retail outlets.

Map courtesy of commenter MLD. Image from Google Maps.

At the same time, Metro is prioritizing this change over changes that would mitigate the inconveniences it will cause riders in areas underserved by SmarTrip retailers. Before, bus riders could "subscribe" to weekly bus passes, providing a recurring payment method and having their passes mailed to them. But WMATA has not yet implemented online purchase methods for SmarTrip passes or provided a way for riders to sign up to have their pass automatically renewed each week.

Social service organizations have also asked for the delay to find a way to distribute bus passes to needy individuals. Before, they would buy paper passes in large numbers and hand them out. With this new system, they will need a way to load passes onto another individual's SmarTrip. A Web site could also allow the functionality, but it's not yet available.

The reason WMATA has chosen to make this change first is likely because of some chafing in the regional fare partnership that currently supports the region-wide bus passes. With paper passes, there was no effective way to implement revenue sharing across the region's transit agencies, and there were rumors Arlington board member Chris Zimmerman expressed that Arlington was considering pulling out of the partnership and issuing their own passes. The new electronic passes will allow pass ridership to be tracked easily and consequently allow pass revenue to fairly distributed across the various agencies based on rides given.

This move represents a step forward in improving the regional fare system. But come January 30th, there may still be people stuck paying single ride fares because they can't get to a place that sells new SmarTrip passes.

Erik Weber has been living car-free in the District since 2009. Hailing from the home of the nation's first Urban Growth Boundary, Erik has been interested in transit since spending summers in Germany as a kid where he rode as many buses, trains and streetcars as he could find. Views expressed here are Erik's alone.