On Monday, King County Metro announced fares will increase on September 1, 2025, for multiple Metro services and for the Seattle Streetcar, which is owned by SDOT but operated by Metro.
From the announcement:
The new adult $3 fare brings the price of riding Metro buses, Metro Flex and Seattle Streetcar in alignment with Sound Transit’s flat fare on Link light rail and Express buses. The Metro Vanpool/Transit pass will increase from $99 to $108 to account for this new fare on regular transit service.
This is Metro’s first adult bus fare increase since establishing a flat fare in 2018. Metro’s fare policies support equitable access to transit, our revenue targets and regional coordination. Periodic review of fares is a regular part of Metro’s budget planning process.
Metro notes that reduced fares are still available for certain riders via the ORCA LIFT program, Reduced Regional Fare Permit, and the Subsidized Annual Pass. People aged 18 years or less ride for free, but are encouraged to get a Youth ORCA Card to practice tapping onto transit.
Thank you to whoever among the legislating class conceived of the idea of making fares simple and portable among most services.
Those who get a transit pass from their employer that merely covers the cost of Metro rides will no longer have to keep refilling their e-purse to ride Link Light Rail and ST Express.
Thank you, also, to whoever created the low-income fare at Kitsap Transit that became the model for ORCA LIFT, and to Katie Wilson, who was probably the single most effective advocate in making both the ORCA LIFT and Subsidized Annual Pass programs to come into being.
And why not include Sounder in the fare alignment? There’s no reason to disincentivize price-sensitive customers from taking Sounder instead of parallel ST bus service.
There is one clear reason against making Sounder cheaper: the cost of deploying more Sounder runs to meet increased ridership demand. If not for the pandemic, that might have been a problem.
As it is, Sounder could easily absorb all the ridership from the current peak-hour bus runs of ST Express 590, 592, and 595.
That said, doing the math on AM peak schedules still shows a trip from Tacoma Dome to Westlake being faster by bus. I would not advocate for the result of Federal Way Link Extension bus route restructures to be longer commutes for any trip with lots of riders.
PM peak math shows a trip from Westlake to Tacoma or Lakewood to take longer by the Express bus than by transferring to Sounder. That hour-or -two window of opportunity has more promise for leaving a hole in the bus schedules, with riders having to take Sounder. However, the buses themselves have to get back to the barn at some point, which may mean deadheading instead of running in revenue service.
Nor does removing that chunk of Express bus service necessarily mean the Sounder fare has to become $3. After all, there will still be (hopefully lots of) bus service between Tacoma and Federal Way, and a frequent train between Federal Way and Westlake. But that would be a longer trip.
I hope ST would drop Sounder fare to a flat $3 should it eliminate non-competitive competing bus trips.
What I would suggest is keep peak service running and do a 6- or 12-month pilot project with Sounder fares being $3, and let ST Express riders vote with their feet, but some time after the next two Link extensions are open for service.
Thank you also to King County for bringing the ORCA LIFT $1 fare closer to full portability within the family of services accepting Puget Pass and ORCA transfers. After October 1, the only service in the Puget Pass family charging more than $1 for ORCA LIFT cardholders will be the monorail ($2).
Having the ORCA LIFT fare be 75% of the regular fare on the water taxis is an odd relic of when the county council decided to nickel and dime kids by raising the youth fare from 50% of regular fare on Metro buses and King County ferries to 75%. It took Gov. Inslee and the Legislature to undo that sin.
It will take a change in leadership at City Hall to complete low-income fare portability vis-a-vis the monorail.
I am surprised to not see this information being put on buses by now. I only had a hunch to check Orca Card’s website when I saw “Fare Required” is displayed on many buses.
The First Hill Streetcar has the new fare sign already, I saw today. Although it was inside the vehicle; I don’t know what the ticket machines on the platform say.
Lots and lots of press for orca lift but you have to dig deep for info on RRFP. granted it’s kind of personal for me because it’s what I use but it seems weird it’s so hidden in the multitude of other options , many of which are also discounts. Seems odd to raise fares on the streetcar which are already abject failures but ok.
It’s to align the streetcar with the bus, so people can take whatever comes first without regard to fare. It also allows the streetcar to eventually be removed without people being able to complain that the removal of the streetcar is a de racto fare increase.
asdf: yes. It was perverse that the streetcar and bus fares were different; that was the way that SDOT rolled. Today, SDOT is smarter. In March 2016, there were two ORCA readers on Westlake Avenue at Denny Way. Of course, the riders could not tap correctly; the pennies had to be allocated in the ORCA backroom.
Yeah, the separate Orca readers for RapidRide and streetcar at the same stop have always bothered me. It’s very easy to accidentally tap the wrong reader and not realize it, and have the bad luck of getting cited for a fare violation as a result. At common stops, there should be one Orca reader whose tap is accepted for both bus and streetcar, and you should be able to tap your card, then board whichever vehicle comes first.
The only RRFP fare changes coming up are on Washington State Ferries (to be determined) and Kitsap Fast Ferries. On October 1, Kitsap Fast Ferries will no longer accept Puget Pass or transfer value, and its westbound fares will rise from $12 to $13, while its reduced fares (RRFP and ORCA LIFT) will rise from $6 to $6.50. Eastbound fares will remain $2 regular and $1 reduced.
The new fares on King County Ferries will be the first time a service is charging more for RRFP fares than for ORCA LIFT fares.
Within the (slightly shrunken as of October 1) Puget Pass family of services, only King County Ferries and the monorail will be charging more than $1. $3 RRFP fare for Vashon Water Taxi, $2.50 for West Seattle Water Taxi, and $2 for the monorail.
Mass transit should be free. We pay more than enough in taxes subsidizing this thing that never ever improves traffic. Might as well allow people to ride free.
It doesn’t improve traffic because it can’t: new car trips will will fill any spaces vacated by drivers switching to transit. This is called “induced demand” or “tragedy of the commons” (because drivers don’t pay the full cost of their car infrastructure or services like traffic police).
What transit does is allow people to bypass car congestion if the train/bus has transit-priority lanes.
Free transit needs to be weighed against achieving the optimal frequency, coverage, and reliability (standby buses to mitigate traffic-congestion delays and bus breakdowns). We’re still far below that. When all Link lines are running every 6 minutes full-time, and all core bus routes are every 10 minutes, then we can think about free fares. Not now.
In my opinion, induced demand does not apply here. If mass transit is truly better than driving, why would people drive? If mass transit is “free”, people would take it. Why spend money for gas?
The time savings may be the only reason. Unfortunately our transit is too slow. Some people need 2 hours for a transit ride that can be done in 20 minutes by car. We need high frequency service, reliable transfers, more bus timeliness, and more coverage.
Another problem is that urbanists hate suburban riders. Transit ridership was being carried by suburban riders in the past. But now we keep ruining their options, and lost ridership. We keep blaming cars and poor urban design, but really it’s the county and state who discarded suburban riders who used to have reliable options to travel to Seattle and Bellevue. Every year they keep losing those options and are forced to go back to car. More cars on our freeways and roads slows down buses and wastes service hours.
Suburb people are most of the commuters. The main priority is making it easier to connect within a city, BUT we can’t neglect riders outside of Seattle. They’re the ones on the road making life more difficult for everyone else.
It’s also going to take a long time to repair the reputation that Seattle has earned on transit and urban safety. As a regular transit rider, even I am getting fed up. Revive I-5 may be the last straw before I turn back to my car. I am passionate about transit, but spending 1-2 hours extra of my day riding the bus is not worth it, especially when things are becoming less hygienic, less safe, and more exposed to people who use drugs.
I know people who say they would never use transit, even if it is free. And we blame them for exaggerating, but it’s true. Transit does not feel safe anymore, especially in light of the recent events.
Especially recently, the 102 buses have been running 10-50 minutes late consistently. It’s frequency is ~45 mins since it’s a peak hour bus. It’s absolutely absurd. I have to wait until after 5 when the frequency briefly goes up to 20 mins so I can somewhat get a ride. And despite the 101 running to Skyway and Renton every few minutes, all these Skyway riders stuff into the 102 anyways and make the bus full. Honestly the 102 should not even stop at any of the Skyway and Renton stops and actually serve Fairwood and South Renton only.
Metro and Sound Transit have actually tried to induce suburban-urban commuter ridership with flat fares.
In the case of the 102, the path to better frequency is to have the route terminate at downtown Renton and just run the tail of the route, more often, both directions, with better span of service. Sure, you’ll have to compete for space on the 101 to get to downtown Seattle, but you should still end up getting there faster with a more-frequent 2-seat ride.
Having the 102 skip major stops along the way would mean riders commuting to downtown Renton and elsewhere would no longer take the 102.
The 148 already does that (all day, semi-frequent connection to Renton). But it takes a longer route through some neighborhoods, and don’t serve other neighborhoods. The 102 trip is already pathetically long taking over an hour to get to downtown. Forcing a transfer (even with frequency) will take even longer. Now with the new South Renton station being planned, I’m sure they’re going to do away with the 102, but I hope at least some peak hour 101 trips remain converted and SKIP Skyway. Suburb commuters can’t put up with all these connections to slow routes that stop at every single place where they don’t live or work (aka Skyway).
Also, for some bizarre reason, most 101 trips are scheduled to arrive 1-2 minutes before the departing 148 from downtown Renton, making it unusable since the 148 only arrives every 30-60 minutes. And the same thing with ST 560/566 to Bellevue. Every 148 trip is perfectly scheduled to depart right before these buses arrive in the afternoon. Vice versa in the morning. Every time I tried to connect to the 148, I have failed and had to wait 20+ minutes, so I just gave up. I even complained to Metro 5+ times and they have not responded in any meaningful way, or promised to make any changes.
Also the 101 goes through Downtown Renton which takes 10 extra minutes, compared to the 102 which heads straight towards SR-900 and I-5.
If the goal is to connect the 101 to a local route anyways, why can’t the 102 just continue as a 101? If it doesn’t, people are going to miss their transfer inevitably since Fairwood doesn’t justify higher frequency. The 148 already continues as an extension of the long 107 route, which makes no sense (they often run late for this reason). The 101 could easily serve the 102/148 corridor instead (using smaller buses 71xx-fleet or 47xx-fleet outside of peak). Run some trips to Fairwood every hour outside peak (reduced frequency is fine since we can guarantee a one-seat ride and 101 is somewhat reliable outside of peak), and every 15-20 minutes during peak. That way the 148 can simply be deleted.
“Also, for some bizarre reason, most 101 trips are scheduled to arrive 1-2 minutes before the departing 148 from downtown Renton”
Correction:
Two possible statements–
“Also, for some bizarre reason, most 101 trips are scheduled to depart 1-2 minutes before the arriving 148 from downtown Renton”
“Also, for some bizarre reason, most 101 trips are scheduled to arrive 1-2 minutes after the departing 148 from downtown Renton”
“Having the 102 skip major stops along the way would mean riders commuting to downtown Renton and elsewhere would no longer take the 102.”
Why do they need to take the 102 when the 101 runs every 10-15 minutes during peak with much larger buses (60 foot)? They cause the 102 (which uses smaller 35-40 foot buses) to get full to the point people have to stand some days.
It also slows down the trip by 5-10 minutes at least.
“It doesn’t improve traffic because it can’t: new car trips will will fill any spaces vacated by drivers switching to transit. ”
Ha I see this theory again. I’d say I sort of agree with you if I follow your logic, but if we apply proof of contradiction here, it does not make sense to me.
If transit doesn’t improve traffic, does that mean traffic won’t be much worse if KCM are on strike on a typical weekday?
I am confused. Do you want Metro to get enough revenue so it can be fare-free and running in the black?