King County Spokesperson Scott Gutierrez has provided some additional information relevant to the fare restructure and card fee proposals working their way through the county council process.
One of those pieces of information is the revenue for the county from charging $5 for the youth ORCA card:
Our total card fee revenue for youth cards in 2016 was $125,000. Most of our youth cards — about 17,000 — are issued through school district Passport programs. Another 8,000 cards in 2016 were issued outside of our Passport accounts, so about $85,000 of the total $125,000 is revenue from school districts.
The ORCA LIFT (low-income) card has been free since the program rolled out in 2015, after human service agencies identified charging for the card as a potential barrier. The Regional Reduced Fare Program card fee is $3, but is slated to become free, pending final approval from the county council. The youth card fee has been waived for children whose parents/guardians have qualified for ORCA LIFT.
County Executive Dow Constantine proposed reducing both the regular and youth card fee from the current $5 to $3 back in August. The County Council’s Transportation, Economy, and Environment Committee voted to table that portion of the package at its most recent meeting on October 31, over concerns that the $700,000 that would be forgone annually on card revenue could be better spent on additional service.
The county waived the youth card fee for a period this past spring and summer, while lowering the electronic fare. The county is expected to provide data from this program soon.
The cost of the Orca card sure gets a lot of air time here. Why is $5 considered such a heavy burden? Really hard up cases get that paper ticket, or they just ask to not pay and get on the bus (which happens very frequently).
It is way higher than most agencies. It is a strong disincentive to use the card, which in turn leads to a lot more cash fares. Cash fares cost the agencies money (they have to process the cash) and slows down service (which also costs them money). The combination of a high initial charge, along with no discount for its use make service substantially worse.
And we should make the cash fare always round up to the nearest dollar. And we should make reasonably priced day passes. $6 for a day pass sound reasonable?
Why exactly should we support taking $85,000 in funding away from schools and our kids?
Lowering the ORCA card fee or making it free like Seattle Transit Blog and the County Council wants to do would save schools money, because they don’t have to spend as much money on ORCA cards. No one here is advocating for increasing the fee to take away money from schools.
Having the $1 youth fare this summer was a great incentive for families to use public transit, especially on weekends. Wish it could be made permanent. Once upon a time Metro was so much more family-friendly — kids 17 and under could ride free when accompanied by an adult on Sundays and holidays. Then came hard times, and this went south. Good times are back again, so no longer necessary to focus exclusively on ‘fare box revenue.’
In cash-handling, and lost operating time at the farebox,any chance we’re saving five hundred thousand dollars if we shove bales of the damn things out the cargo doors of a C-5? And the lifelong habit of transit-riding in whole new generations?
Brad, the issue here isn’t the five dollar bill. It’s about refusing to give a child the price of a beer or a standard morning coffee to introduce them to the way of life this blog is all about. Paper or plastic, who gives what’s under the tail of a rat? Which one is cheaper, anyhow? Oil or trees?
Personal answer right now is paper hands down. Especially when you’re sixteen and can get tried as an adult. For Fare Inspection (not the inspectors, but the overpaid suit-clad skunks who write their orders) a paper ticket is always blanket immunity from a fare evasion charge.
While an ORCA tap out or order makes a month’s up-front money State’s Evidence for same crime as stealing a hundred rides. Lesson to young people? Raised hands get you shot anyhow.
And didn’t Walt Disney send you kids to Sunday School, or make you learn plate tectonics before you graduated, Mickey? If a city where the middle class can’t afford to live can’t find $85,000 in change wearing out its pants-pockets, it might want to relocate out of an earthquake zone. Read your script! You’re not Donald’s Uncle this shoot.
Mark Dublin
From Wikipedia:
“In parliamentary procedure, the use of table, as a verb, has two different and contradictory meanings:
In the United States, to “table” usually means to postpone or suspend consideration of a pending motion.
In the rest of the English-speaking world, such as in the United Kingdom and Canada, to “table” means to begin consideration (or reconsideration) of a proposal.”
Probably best to avoid the word “table” altogether when discussing debates. In this context, I’m not sure if it means ‘delay’ or ‘reject’ (the previous article suggests delay). Either would be clearer and more accurate.
It’s the US so it means the former. Do we have to stop saying “public school” too?
However, the article is a little inaccurate because tabling implies they won’t consider it again in the foreseeable future, but the linked article says they merely postponed it to next month’s meeting. First Hill station was tabled, meaning they decided not to do it. Graham station and 130th station were deferred, meaning they wouldn’t do them now but reserved a place for them to be revived in the future.