Friday Roundtable: ORCA Tap to Pay Begins on Monday

58 Replies to “Friday Roundtable: ORCA Tap to Pay Begins on Monday”

1. Will this work with transfers or will one still need an or a card for that?

   1. From the article: “Passengers will be able to transfer for free within a 2 hour period after their initial tap.”

      1. Tried it this weekend, and confirmed that transfers work great!

2. Are the services that don’t support them soon planning to by FIFA and just aren’t ready yet? Or do they not plan to (if so, do we know why?)

   1. I don’t see a need for any of the agencies listed to adapt tap to pay by FIFA, except maybe the monorail. WSF has always been the odd man out in ORCA inclusion (only accepting the wallet value), and has very distinct ticketing policies. I think it’s fair to say that approximately zero World Cup visitors will use DART, Metro Flex, and Paratransit (especially for paratransit, where you have to schedule in advance and prove qualifications). Payment methods are the least of a visitor’s worry if they are seeking to navigate the DART/Metro Flex world of the low-density/low-service transit world in greater Seattle.

      The monorail accepting tap to pay on credit cards would be great, but it’s just one line. My recollection of buying a ticket and riding it (pre-ORCA acceptance, pre me living in Seattle) was that it was uneventful and easy to do.

3. I wonder: if Seattle didn’t get FIFA, would ST have tap-to-pay ready this year?

   1. I wouldn’t be surprised if the World Cup was the main driver for ST to implement Tap to Pay ready by June, especially because the system will benefit visitors and tourists more than the local riders.

      1. Agreed. When I’ve been out of town is when I find the local transit card annoying. Getting an ORCA card is a hassle and I just imagine how annoying it would be for visitors. There really should be a universal transit card (used by agencies across the U. S. if not the world). I would consider this phone-based system the next best thing (while some consider it the best thing).

   2. During the Q&A at the event yesterday, someone asked that exact question. They said Tap to Pay has been on the roadmap for a while, but it was prioritized over other features due to the World Cup.

4. Will we be able to put our Orca cards into Apple Wallet? Any timeline on when that will be implemented?

   1. No timeline on ORCA cards in Apple Wallet, but they’re still working on it. The apparent focus has been on Open Payments.

   2. Obsolete technology. Orca should be discontinued except for special needs and students. You can put any CC on wallets virtual or otherwise. Transit cars are a vestige of the past

      1. Credit card companies charge large transaction fees that come out of fare revenue. With ORCA, the cut goes to a company the agency has chosen and has a bulk deal with. With credit cards, ST is paying a larger cut to a company it has no choice over and is usually a large Wall Street bank. Beyond that, the company gets your personal information about the transaction.

      2. Huh, Paul… well my ORCA card is my employer provided transit pass. I don’t pay with a credit card. So being able to load into my phone would be beneficial. As it would for all people that get transit partially or fully paid by their employer.

         So… just “special needs and students”? Not a chance.

      3. I like having a physical card. I don’t want everything on my phone. And some people don’t have phones, some people don’t have credit cards. Transit is for everyone, and the physical ORCA card provides a convenient option for many.

      4. Credit card companies charge large transaction fees that come out of fare revenue.

         Administering ORCA isn’t free. Is it subcontracted to a credit company anyway? If it’s administered by employees with medical and State pensions that would likely be even more expensive (what’s the biggest slice of the pie for operating a transit vehicle… oh yeah, labor). We really don’t have the numbers to know if there’s a net difference in total fare revenue. I’d think any cost differential would be offset to some degree by increased ridership because of the convenience.

      5. “Administering ORCA isn’t free. Is it subcontracted to a credit company anyway?”

         It’s contracted to a company. I don’t know whether the company also offers credit or is part of Mastercard or Visa. The point is, ST and Metro et al made a strategic decision to use an ORCA-like payment system and to hire a company to administer it. That’s no different than contracting for bus operators or reports or construction. They make the transit system and we use it, and it has a straightfoward transit card in lieu of what would otherwise be cash payments.

         The difference with open payments is that holds the transit agency hostage to whatever third-party payment system a passenger happens to use, for a fee the agency has no control over, that’s also a high fee and comes out of the fare revenue. So I use traditional ORCA and pay $3 and the agency gets all of it. Somebody else taps a credit card or phone wallet and pays $3, but a middleman takes 30 cents and the agency only gets $2.70. We both get an identical ride but the other person has given the agency less and a middleman more. (Actually, I renew my pass once a month or fill my e-purse once or twice a month, and I use a debit card for that, but that’s 1-2 transactions per month instead of 20-40, and debit cards with PIN have lower transaction fees than credit cards.) But the other person just wants the convenience of tap-to-pay and can’t be bothered to see who’s making a killing out of it and taking it out of the transit agency’s fare revenue.

         “Administering ORCA isn’t free. Is it subcontracted to a credit company anyway? If it’s administered by employees with medical and State pensions that would likely be even more expensive”

         Maybe, maybe not. The contractor charges an overhead beyond the staff’s salaries and benefits. That overhead may or may not be high. The agency may have overzealously outsourced due to ideology, and ended up paying more overhead than it should have or than an in-house solution would have. At minimum it’s not contributing to the agency’s in-house accumulated knowledge and skill set for the future; that’s staying with the contractor.

         “(what’s the biggest slice of the pie for operating a transit vehicle… oh yeah, labor).”

         The total cost of bus drivers doesn’t change depending on what payment method a passenger uses or all passengers use.

      6. The difference with open payments is that holds the transit agency hostage to whatever third-party payment system a passenger happens to use, for a fee the agency has no control over, that’s also a high fee and comes out of the fare revenue.

         Not true. The transit agency has the ultimate decision. Do we accept Discover or not? Lots of places don’t. The “high fee” is relative only if you can know what the cost of processing the in house ORCA cost is. My guess, it’s really high if you figure in the total cost of running a one off transaction card. The bottom line is most places accept credit cards or charge a premium. WSF I heard is in the charge a premium camp. That’s great. People can choose to pay with credit, cash or just not use the service. Some gas stations have the same model and lots of people choose to pay the surcharge or go elsewhere.

5. The new logos on the scanners have been spotted in the wild already on an 8 bus, the L8 is early for once!

   https://bsky.app/profile/henrybendon.bsky.social/post/3mfcr6tdgo226

   1. If you transfer do you tap your credit card again and the system doesn’t charge because it knows you have a transfer? Or do you just get on and wait to see if there is fare enforcement? Or do you have to give the last 4 digits of the credit card to the driver because the majority of buses don’t have the required reader? It would be so easy if the fare collection machines just spit out a paper RFI ticket. It’s been a long time since I’ve been on a bus but I think Metro is still handing out the “reusable” paper transfers?

      1. From https://info.myorca.com/contactless/:
         “Tap the same contactless credit or debit card each time you ride to receive the same two-hour, transfer benefit you experience with ORCA cards.”

         How most systems work is they put a hold on your card whenever you tap but don’t actually charge you until the end of the day/week when it’ll look at how many times you tapped and charge you one combined fee for the day/week

      2. They said they’d collect the day’s trips and charge it at the end of the day. That gives the ability to weed out transfers. You won’t show the credit card to the driver because it’s not the driver who would ask for it, it’s the roving fare ambassadors. Metro still has paper transfers. I think it has started talking about maybe eliminating them in the next year or two.

   2. This Reddit post is reporting that readers with the new logos are already accepting tap-to-pay: https://reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/1ra0bmy/orca_reader_screen_this_morning/

   3. I’m on the 60 right now, and the reader in the back has the new logos, but the one in the front doesn’t.

6. For the enforcement effort, I have a thought. Often when I tap to pay, I notice a text receipt option that has the contact number associated with the card pre-filled. Could such a text receipt serve as proof of payment for fare inspection?

   1. No. The fare inspection would need to be verified in the internal system using the validation application program. It gets verified using the last 4 digits of the card number.

7. This morning I tapped my phone onto the 545 (like always) to pay with my ORCA card with a pass, but it charged my credit card instead! These issues should never happen! I just lost $3 for nothing.

   1. Now that’s worrisome. My understanding was that Google Wallet knows to prioritize a transit card over credit cards when used on a transit system, but that may actually not be working. I could probably avoid that error by making sure I tap my Orca card on Google Wallet to bring it up front when tapping the Orca reader, but that’s one extra step you shouldn’t have to take.

      1. This is what I was wondering. Am I gonna have to select my orca card on the Google wallet specifically now?

8. Not accommodating LIFT or RRFPin some fashion seems like a miss and detracts from the fanfare.

9. Great. now fare evaders will have one less excuse to not pay anyways. Build the damn fare gates.

   1. “Tapping several cards (or a whole wallet) may result in charges on multiple cards.”

      Is there no delay after a tap until it can accept another tap?

      Is there a max to the number of cards that can be tapped at the same time?

   2. If I had a nickel for every time you complained about fare skipping then I could have afforded bus fare today.

      1. Well said.

   3. You are also negative. Why is that?

10. [ot]

    [Ed. I marked this as off-topic and then realized it’s an open thread, sorry. The comment was about copper thieves.]

    1. Yeah, 1 Line I guess was down in some section because of more copper theft. 2 Line was down between Redmond and Overlake because of an issue with the overhead contact system. They were running bus shuttles.

11. I checked this today on Metro and Link, to verify it charged my ORCA pass and not my debit or credit card. It behaved correctly. I have my credit card wrapped in foil because the readers were previously giving me the “One card at a time, please” error. My debit card hasn’t needed that yet.

    You don’t need to wrap it completely in foil: I have a folded piece that’s worn away enough it just covers the chip, and that’s enough to hide it from the readers.

    1. Metro’s weekend update says tap-to-pay won’t start till Monday, and the article says that too. So I guess our experiences today aren’t representative. Seb’s credit card was charged on ST Express today, so ST and Metro may be starting on different dates.

12. How do I avoid having my credit card charged if both it and my ORCA card are in same wallet. Do I have to take the ORCA card out? Or, if they are each on one side of a wallet, will it work to tap just the ORCA card side?

    1. The most foolproof way is to take the ORCA card out and tap it. We’re still gathering anecdotal information on how big the risk is if you just tap the wallet.

       Whether one side of the wallet is safe depends on the strength of the readers, whether bus readers and Link readers behave identically, the thickness of the wallet and what else is in it, and whether the wallet has RF shielding (as many recent wallets do) — which we don’t know about those readers or your wallet.

       You can put foil around your other cards to hide them from RF readers. I took a piece of foil, folded it in half, put my credit card inside. and put the wrapped card in a credit-card slot in my wallet. The foil has now worn down so part of it is missing, but as long as the chip is covered it’s been working. When I want to use the credit card in a store, I take it out, which is a lot less often than I ride transit.

       I successfully tapped my wallet today on Metro (twice) and Link (once) with my ORCA, credit, and debit cards inside. My credit card is covered in foil, and it ignored my debit card. But Seb above said ST Express charged his credit card. So we’re still figuring out how big the issue is.

       I wish they just didn’t have open payment, but the powers that be have decided to do it.

13. I’m not super clear on the King County Water Taxi between Seattle/West Seattle/Vashon. Boats have accepted Orca for a long time, but do they have to wait for new readers to be installed to get tap to pay?

    1. King County Water Taxi will get Tap to Pay support soon, but additional work is required for dockside ORCA readers.

14. On the topic of the water taxi/kitsap fast ferries, I know that kitsap transit is looking into moving operations to a new pier to increase the number of departures. From my experience using the facility, it seems like a major source of vessel dwell time is the time it takes for everyone to scan their Orca card or deposit payment as they board the vessel.

    Would it be feasible to implement a system where people can pay as they get into line? I wonder if that could reduced all times enough to slightly increase frequency.

15. “Starting Saturday Feb. 21 at 6:30 a.m., 2 Line trains will operate only from South Bellevue Station to Downtown Redmond Station.”

    I hope this doesn’t delay the crosslake opening.

    I noticed today that trains were arriving bunched together with long waits in between.

    1. I’m guessing it means that passengers will no longer be allowed on 2-line trains in Seattle because it’s taking too much time to clear the passengers at International District station. Annoying, but only temporary until the full 2-line opens in March 28. I doubt this is going to impact the opening day.

       1. It has to do with power issues. They are not running any trains tomorrow across the lake.

       2. @Alex, does that mean there’re power issues that need to be fixed before opening day? Or is this related to the copper thefts that’ve suspended East Link beyond Bel-Red?

    2. The 2 Line was withdrawn from the Lynnwood-CID segment as of 6:12pm today. It was nice while it lasted. Hopefully it will be back soon. I think I can I think I can.

16. Unclear, the system alerts page says due to power issues all cross lake service is suspended indefinitely. It’s on their website

    1. There were power issues today between Overlake and DT Redmond not related to the copper theft which was down around Federal Way. Hopefully that’s the only reason for the suspended interline service.

17. There’s a new Page 2 article on the new Renton Transit Center.

    1. Link here!

       https://seattletransitblog.com/2026/02/20/rentons-transit-center-moves-toward-i-405

18. If the copper thefts are segments of catenary wire, then I’m really wondering how the thieves get up there to collect it. Do they bring ladders? Are they acrobats? How do they get on site without ST security seeing it? How big a tool do they need to cut catenary wire? How can they finish and get out of the track area before getting hit by the next train?

19. What are the proposed laws that might dissuade copper thieves? Have they worked elsewhere? Trespassing and stealing is already illegal.

20. https://pedestrianobservations.com/2026/02/19/against-free-buses/

    This is a NYC article, but I read as a strong argument in favor of a flat fare for Link to support better integration between Link and the various bus networks.

    1. I thought one of the links in the article was pretty interesting, arguing that monthly fares should be relatively low to incentive somewhat regular riders to buy a monthly pass. Once someone buys a monthly pass, they are incentivized to take transit wherever possible, since they’ve already paid for it.

       https://pedestrianobservations.com/2025/12/31/fare-practices/

       Numbers-wise, Seattle’s monthly pass is currently $108, or 36x the rate of a single ride. That means a rider needs to take transit roughly 18 days out of the month for it to be worth it. Most European cities cluster around 20x the rate of a single ride. If Seattle was the same, the monthly pass would be $60, and a rider would need to take transit roughly 10 days out of the month to be worth it.

       1. Addendum: With WFH more common these days, perhaps something like 24x-26x the rate of a single pass ($72-$78) would be reasonable. That would be roughly 12-3 days of riding transit every month, or 3 days a week.

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