Metro seems happy to ignore how much the PAYL slows down heavily loaded busses at each outbound stop. Time saved on 3rd is promptly lost at every outbound stop while people force their way back up the aisle dropping their change on the way.

Tentatively, I’d say that the stations with airport surcharges are isolated. There is no surrounding neighborhood, the only buses dead-end at the airport, and there are fare gates to enforce payment. I don’t know these areas well since I just get on the train and leave. I think SFO station just has airport parking around it? And Newark is similar? (Note the $2 bus to Newark Penn Station for cheapskates.) Only a few NJT stations have fare gates, and Newark Airport happens to be one of them. At JFK, the surcharge is on the Airtrain which goes only from the subway to the airport with no other stops.

Possibly, or they’re just trying to gouge plane travellers. Everything south of Colma was part of the same extension but only SFO pays the surcharge. I wonder if airport workers get a price break?

There are similar gougings at other airports. Trains from Manhattan to Newark are $4, but to Newark Airport are $15. JFK Air Train is $5 for a mile or so, while the subway is $2.25 for what, 30 miles to downtown? Plus they get more from the “visitor confusion tax”. The Air Train cards at the TVMs sound like they’re Metrocards good on both the subway and Air Train, but when I got a multi-ride card I found it was good only on the Air Train and the agent wouldn’t give me a refund. I ended up using the card on two extra trips (because the airline lost my luggage), and gave the rest of the card to somebody else, but I was still mad about it.

Denver has a $13 hour bus ride to the airport. However, the trip is 13 miles on a freeway through emptiness — there’s nothing around the airport — so part of the cost may be justified.

Right now the only decent connections from Totem Lake Flyer Stop to Bellevue Transit Center are the ST 532 and 535. Given these buses on the reverse commute run anywhere from 10-20 minutes (or more) behind schedule I can still live with the $1.50 fare but $2.50 ($5 a day) on the days I don’t want to ride or want to go to DT Bellevue after work I’ll just drive. I’m willing to bet there are a lot of other short eastside connections like this that suffer. I guess overall ST won’t lose much revenue with a decline of short hop riders but system wide it really sucks to see the capcity going to waste because the fare structure is skewed to favor long haul routes.

I know it would make the fare system even more convoluted but with ORCA it seems like it wouldn’t be that hard to make fares demand based (i.e. the routes that are running full charge more and the routes that are essentially “deadheading” make it cheap). That’s the way airlines, and most commercial transit would operate; demand and supply. Instead, ST has no Peak Fare policy at all.

But the point is that you could go to Pittsburg every 15 minutes and it would take only an hour or so. That’s the added value you get. Whereas if you want to take Link to Tacoma, forget it.

If Link is extended to Tacoma and Everett, it would be similar to BART and a distance-based fare would be more justifiable. But that’s not even on the construction schedule yet.

Not sure about the 56x routes out of South since I’ve never driven any of those.