This route provides essential east-west service, has strong potential ridership, and can be further improved by working with the cities to give signal priority, better loading at stops and lane improvements. It also balances the Transit Now investment to give another route to South King County.

But you’re right in pointing out the trend towards simpler fare structures. Many transit agencies have been abandoning transfers in favor of daily passes.

It seems like having readers at every door would benefit a move toward distance-based fares like Sounder and Link with a full fare being deducted at boarding with any difference being refunded upon leaving, otherwise all-door boarding would leave the driver unable to see if someone tapped at a rear door.

I think a wiser move would be to standardize the fare structure with a single price regardless of distance or time of day. Just because ORCA will accommodate a complex fare structure doesn’t mean Metro should use one. Standardizing fares and incenting riders to use ORCA through reload incentives, lower fares and the elimination of paper transfers could increase revenue while simultaneously making the system easier to understand, thereby eliminating a layer of uncertainty that could serve to keep potential riders off the bus.

Metro also needs to make it easier to get cards and to reload them. It’s great if you start your trip by a TVM or can wait for added value to trickle through the system, but increasing the distribution network would likely increase the adoption rate.

I think it would have worked just fine a second time, but the driver waved us on because the bus was crowded and running late.

Wonder how often that’s happening; but I suppose it’s not much different then the missed revenue from “fake” transfers and the like.

I forgot where I saw it but I saw somewhere that you need people to have roughly a 10% chance of having their fare checked.