For more than a year, University of Washington students, faculty, and staff were unable to use their U-Passes as a fare payment method aboard the West Seattle Water Taxi. With the Water Taxi no longer under Metro jurisdiction and subsumed by the King County Ferry District, the agreement to accept the U-Pass was not carried over. Just yesterday, UW Commuter Services announced that KCFD would be restoring the U-Pass as an accepted payment method.
From an e-mail sent out by Commuter Services:
Commuter Services at the University of Washington is excited to announce that U-PASS members now have unlimited access to the King County Water Taxi system that includes both the Vashon Island/Downtown and West Seattle/Downtown routes as part of their U-PASS program benefits. With one-way fares starting at $3.75 for the Vashon taxi and $3.00 for West Seattle, it’s easy to see the savings add up quickly
The move essentially gives U-Pass users nearly the same benefits as those with an ORCA passport monthly pass, but at a fraction of the cost.
I think this was easy because the U-Pass is now essentially a loaded $4.75 PugetPass on ORCA.
Kind of funny. I’ve been using my U-Pass on the water ferry since the beginning of October without incident. Glad they updated the website to reflect the official announcement. Now if they would just go on the record about U-Pass being valid for the SLUT.
A clarification…in many cases the Passport program is just as heavily discounted as the UPass, especially for fare determination zones outside the Seattle CBD. In the suburbs ORCA Passport accounts can run as little as $100/employee/year, a cost often 100% paid by the employer. Students may not pay much for the UPass, but they do pay something, unlike a large number of employer Passport accounts.
You’re right. It’s the monthly passes I’m referring to.
Using it on Monday to have fun on Vashon.
Woo hoo!
Can the U-Pass be used on the 118/119 bus, if it still goes onboard the Fauntleroy ferry to Vashon?
I’d like to see the ferries accept $27 monthly Reduced Regional Fare Permits as full payment. Right now, that is the case with $45 Access passes, but not with general RRFPs. I want to incentivize Access users to avail themselves of all fixed routes that work for them, but I also don’t want to incentivize people applying for Access just to get the reduced fare deals. I also kinda want the Access ORCA pass to go away, as it is a bad deal once you cross the county line. It isn’t honored by the agencies in other counties.
The same request goes for Sound Transit honoring the $27 monthly RRFP as full payment on Sounder.
If legal, throw in this one catch: In order to get the full rebate, payment has to be made by ORCA product. Metro, ST, and KC Ferries are contractually obligated to give RRFP fares to all RRFP holders from all eight participating counties. I believe they can give a further incentive to non-cash payers though.