How About a Deal to Lower Youth and LIFT Fares?

34 Replies to “How About a Deal to Lower Youth and LIFT Fares?”

1. Just curious, are there hard numbers attached to this caption “Fare evasion by paper transfer is booming.”?

   1. I think that’s a good question. Hopefully, Metro is tracking numbers from the RapidRide fare inspectors that show ‘paper transfer evasion’ vs. ‘electronic card fare evasion’ vs. ‘zero format payment evasion’. Those stats might not be scalable to the whole system, but they’d be a start.

   2. Count the Likes on the linked Facebook page.

      1. You might as well have edited a Wikipedia page and then linked to it in the story. Facebook “likes” indicate nothing more than a mouse click.

      2. I promise I have no control over that page, and have not Liked it.

      3. Perspective: you’ll notice fare evasion only if someone’s bad at it and pull out the wrong transfer, or something. The lose-lose situation is if they’re guilted into actually paying, since that takes time from all other riders while they also part with cash..

   3. Bet delays caused by fare collection cost a lot more than transfer fare evasion. Have never seen anywhere, including in STB, cost of one minute of operating delay.

      Have heard that operating one bus costs $100 per hour. That’s $1.67 that every coach loses the system every minute it loses in revenue service.

      Including arguments over fares, or having to work out with the driver the total cash fare for half a dozen people. Have seen 6-buses-or more take seven minute dwell time at Westlake NB at 5pm.

      6 buses X 7 minutes X 1.67 = $70.14. And is it true system had to add 10 minutes to every schedule when Tunnel went to fareboxes? So additional cost for every DSTT vehicle per rush hour is….?

      And to the above numbers, add every single delay caused by present difficulties the system puts in the way of fare payment itself. “Separate systems” philosophy separates every participating system and agency from its money.

      For instance, a few weeks back, I watched two out of town passengers take a cab because finding cash to transfer from Sounder to Westlake DSTT trip was cost more time and aggravation than transit was worth.

      San Francisco drivers tell me that when MUNI put card readers at every door of all its fleets and fare inspectors all over the system, both dwell time and fare evasion dropped. Metro dropped similar plan instead.

      Working people, especially drivers, can’t be blamed for being literally driven crazy by fare cheats. But transit system that pays their wages needs to stay sane, and put an end to the policies of its own that make it cheat itself.

      Like the kind of Republicans that founded Metro would have said: “Run it like a business!”

      Mark Dublin

      1. IMO If Metro and ORCA were “Ran like a business” it would be a drastically different system. Some of it good, and some of it bad. Service equality would simply not happen, nor would access, etc. the service would be on the routes that make money. ORCA might actually benefit from it as there would be a very strong push to get people to use it, and compete payment of fares would also be enforced very strongly. No free rides, and probably a cash surcharge to cover the cost of handing the cash.

2. But what about young people visiting the area? It’d be much harder for them to get a registered youth Orca to pay the youth fare. I’d still give drivers discretion to let on (say) eight-year-olds paying cash with the youth fare, just like today. And just like today, the kids wouldn’t get transfer credit without an Orca.

   1. I don’t expect young people visiting the area to go through the trouble of getting an ORCA card ahead of time in the mail. I expect their parent(s) / legal guardian(s) to do that. At least I would expect that if it didn’t cost $5 for the card, so really I don’t honestly expect them to take that bargain right now.

      I also don’t expect other agencies to necessarily follow an ORCA-only requirement. Link, for example, has no change-fumbling slow-downs, so there is less reason to have such a requirement on Link. That’s why I am focusing on KC Metro in this case, but a similar requirement on ST Express is equally justifiable.

      Tourists who expect to ride transit have to get used to doing their homework. If they are tourists, I expect they aren’t broke, and can afford to not have the local fare system designed to cater to them at the expense of the daily travel time of local riders.

      1. “Tourists who expect to ride transit have to get used to doing their homework. If they are tourists, I expect they aren’t broke, and can afford to not have the local fare system designed to cater to them at the expense of the daily travel time of local riders.”

         I can’t believe that anybody close to the transit industry – or any other- would say that about any sector of the customer- completely including- the passenger public. Anybody who has driven a bus for a single day in service knows that it’s a lot to expect a passenger to read a sign, especially the one on destination the reader board.

         A huge percentage of the riding public doubtless dropped out of school precisely because they hated homework. Doubt either Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos or Warren Buffet ever did any. Let alone allow anyone seeking their business to demand any.

         Limousines, cabs, and Lyft know better than to dare. If passenger homework worked, everything from Dubai airlines would save trillions by deleting its advertising budget.

         From Dubai to Seattle, tourism is a giant, lucrative, and fiercely competitive business, desperate to attract customers at enormous cost to its the local businesses depend on it.

         Exactly the same as the transit industry, which is in this country has been fighting for its life since end of World War II, when the average American could finally buy a car.

         The way to get both tourists and locals out of each other’s way is for transit to exert itself, like every other business subsidized or not, is to make sure its arriving passenger public knows everything they need to to become customers before they get on the plane, let alone off.

         Including how well our Sea-Tac to Seattle fares compare with cabs and car services, as well as everything else great about Transit in Seattle.

         Every single ticket to Seattle should be accompanied by a complete map, schedule, and instruction booklet an ORCA card with a re-loadable day pass, guaranteeing their business first trip Downtown.

         Precisely so tourists will be complaining how bad local passengers are slowing down service, for lack of homework, reading ability, or overly passive aggressivity. Except for our transit system, which should set an example for the Universe.

         Man, you’d better hope Dori Monson doesn’t have coffee with anyone who can read! In Yogi Berra’s likely words: “Sheesh!”

         Mark.

      2. Is it possible that hotels can get (or Metro can sell to them) a small pack of ORCA cards – and even be able to load them?

         Then a tourist can simply stop by the hotel lobby to rent an ORCA card or buy one outright. (Or buy one if they don’t return the card at check out).

      3. Baselle, that’s a good suggestion. I’ve been to other cities where it was possible to get your local card at the front desk (usually accompanied by some pertinent information as to how the system worked, where the nearest stop/station was etc.). Of course if we were really transit-friendly, we’d have 3/5/7 day tickets and you’d just buy one at the desk…or grocery…or library…or….

         As far as providing all of that information with a ticket goes, almost nobody is actually handed a ticket with a boarding pass in a sleeve from an agent any longer. Who would give you that info and ORCA card? A vast majority of people either print their boarding passes out at home or a kiosk, or use their airline app for an e-boarding pass. Where that sort of thing would work is for conventions, where attendees typically get a packet with all sorts of city info from their event planner. That would be a decent target for transit cards/passes. I believe the Convention and Visitors Bureau probably puts those things together and that would be the best place to start…perhaps also those multi-attraction cards, with a pass included and info as how to get to each attraction via transit.

         Most tourists have done some legwork to figure out at least something about where they are going (why would they come otherwise); if they are not renting a car it’s not too much to assume they have some basic knowledge of how they intend to get around. Very, very few people step off of a plane with “Okay, now what?” as their first order of business.

      4. “Very, very few people step off of a plane with “Okay, now what?” as their first order of business.”

         Nearly all tourists step off a plane, bags in tow, with “where am I staying?” as their first order of business. If its your family at home, that’s one thing. If its a hotel, planting passes in the hotels is an easy win.

3. Keep it simple. Have youth, LIFT, and senior/disabled fare be half of full adult fare. Do away with paper transfers.

4. Good suggestions Brent.. Really appreciate the youth orca mail in info.

   Tiniest possible progress by the Orca team.

   So, currently a Youth monthly pass would be…

   $1.50 PugetPass $54
   with the equivalent employer adult pass (everything but ferries and sounder and vanpool)
   $3.50 PugetPass $126

   Still too high. E-Purse without a monthly pass is a bad incentive. It forces kids to ration rides, and we want them to take the bus.

   Note that the website actually has 20 different monthly PugetPass values – should be three for adults.
   one-zone,
   two-zone,
   two-zone & ferries & sounder & vanpool.

   Glad that hauling your kid to the service center is no longer an absolute requirement.
   Still a long way to go. Perhaps online ordering will be available before ST2 is complete.

   Here are the entirety of the instructions to order youth orca by mail…
   Include proof of age for youth card order.
   https://www.orcacard.com/ERG-Seattle/p2_002.do?m=42&i=473

   Link goes to the glossary.
   Further clicking on items in the glossary shows…
   Youth: To prove age for six to 18 years of age, use one of the following:
   1. Student ID
   2. State ID or driver’s license
   3. Birth certificate

5. how are you planning to pay for this? Orca lift is being paid for by the most recent fare increase.

   1. You are correct that a fare increase in other categories would be a likely funding candidate. Prop 1 money is a possibility. But also credit the service efficiency that would result as helping to fund it.

      With severe cash surcharges in place for LIFT/youth fares, putting a mild full-fare cash surcharge (by making most Metro trips $3 cash and $4 for 2-zone peak) ought to be politically straightforward. Really, that full-fare cash surcharge ought to be politically doable right now with the LIFT precedent now set.

   2. Prop 1 is restricted to operations and Seattle, so I doubt this would qualify. And don’t cut into the first major frequency expansion we’ve had in a long time. We need them.

6. (1) Sell ORCA cards on the bus

   (2) Make everyone use an ORCA card

   End of transmission

   1. $5 entry fee to your first bus ride, on top of the fare?

      1. I understand they don’t want to have a lot unused cards floating around out there, at the same time, we need to have an ORCA-only system.

         I would make the cards very cheap, say 50 cents, but also, make them returnable like bottles.

         If someone brings back a card to Metro let them be able to redeem it for 50 cents.

         This way they can fight the propensity of people to use it and toss it. At worst the bums and kids can pick them up off the street and turn them into cash.

      2. I have three ORCA cards at home I have used for visitors. I can’t use them again without going through some special process to get them turned on, and I don’t get back the balance that was on them. I don’t mind losing a little cash value, but I don’t buy the argument that ST/Metro are trying to reduce plastic waste. If anything, they are trying to still make some profit off of card sales, as a revenue source. I can’t think of a more counterproductive way to raise revenue.

      3. There’s a reason why all the grocery store check out stands sell a jazillion pre-paid cards for almost anything. The return on that card investment in unused credits is very large. I’ve read several numbers, and all were better than making peanut butter for a living.

      4. Why can’t you use them again? Do the cards stop working after a period of non-use?

      5. Which is a good reason, Brent, that we should do exactly what with the five dollar entry fee? Really wish so much about transit wasn’t turning me into a moderate Republican. Or at least channeling one.

         I guess one could call it entry into a club- which unfortunately calls to mind Groucho Marx’s assessment of membership requirements. But is it really worth the hassle of making people pay to pay fares?

         At least give the buyer an all day pass loaded on the card they buy- for which five dollars isn’t bad. Also, be sure that five hundred years from now we finally have an all-day pass.

         Considering the extra passengers accompanying the end of this particular hassle, how much are we really going to lose without that fee?

         Mark Dublin

      6. Now that I think about this, I’m convinced that ‘Team-Orca’ is on to something big.
         Selling little plastic cards for $5 is sheer genius. Just wait until Mastercard and Visa learn of this new marketing coop. It will forever change the way we do business.

      7. Why, exactly, don’t they want to have a lot of unused cards out there?

         I’m unwilling to use ORCA because it would create a digital record of my travel, and $5 is too much for a card I’d have to throw away and replace every week. RFID prox cards cost on the order of ten cents apiece wholesale, so it’s hard to understand the justification for such a high barrier to entry.

7. Even though english is my sixth language, I’m fairly confident in my reading comprehension skills. But I’m not fully understanding this post. Why do these two types of fares that are already low need to be lower? And what do paper transfer tickets have to do with all of this? Is it that eliminating paper transfer tickets will presumably make Metro money, then they can generously pass that along in the form lower LIFT and youth fares? What happened to budget shortfalls? Will that never happen again?

   1. Ah, thank you for answering Claire’s question.

8. I see fare evasion frequently on my sparing use of Metro (mainly thru downtown).
   In February, I had a seven hour layover in San Francisco. After taking BART to SoMa to get some new motorcycle gear, I hopped a trolley on Market. Unfortunately, the plasticky, paper card from the BART kiosk at SFO doesn’t work with MUNI or SFMATA buses. I paid cash fare and received a paper transfer. It has a unique color and date printed on it. (I ultimately bought a Clipper card at the Castro MUNI Station.) Why doesn’t KCM do the same? ORCA cards being proposed here will be bought, sold, “lost” on the black market. In other words, taxpayer subsidies will be used for nefarious things, and this will be even harder to control/manage.

   …and I’m growing increasingly frustrated with the increases of my fare to subsidize everyone else. All these fare increases push me into my car or motorcycle when I would otherwise take transit.

   1. Some of the money on your car tab is also helping to fund ORCA LIFT. ;)

      And, of course, general sales taxpayers are subsidizing your fare, regardless of the category. In reality, no fare payments are subsidizing any other fare payments, except perhaps on a couple of routes where the buses are packed and make a tiny profit.

9. I can attest to the fare evasion issue, and I’m not a daily rider on Metro. Case in point: I was waiting for a #358 at 145th & Aurora northbound (pre-Rapid Ride), and people were deboarding the bus and offering those of us waiting to board their transfer tickets. In today’s Rapid Ride days, a friend of mine said that the back of her bus suddenly and abruptly emptied when a fare inspector boarded through the front door. Still another time, at a transit center, after I boarded, the driver left the bus to go use the restroom. Though he closed the door, fare evaders peered in to see what the transfer ticket was, opened a portfolio with a variety of transfer tickets in it, then when the driver returned, used the appropriate one. Lastly, there was an article about the underground industry of fare evasion.

   Last August, it was reported that Metro could save $4 million by eliminating paper transfers, a policy that would align them with the other transit agencies in the region (= less confusion for riders).
   I would be delighted if the $4 million in savings was used to saturate the area (relative to day’s exclusive outlets) with outlets for getting youth, LIFT, and reduced-fare permits. In addition to outlets, I’d like to see some outreach to sources of these riders, such as schools and senior centers. I’m also all for at least reducing the fee for getting an ORCA card from $5 to, say, $2 or $3. I’d also like to see the card fee dropped for day passes that are purchased at Sea-Tac and for paid guests at area hotels.

10. There should be NO fee for getting an ORCA card. As long as there is a fee, the agencies are saying “Don’t get an ORCA card; we want you to pay cash. Please.”

    A refundable deposit (refunded upon handing in the card) would be OK.

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