City Lowering Fares Is Not the Answer
posted by on November 20 at 14:37 PM
King County Metro is getting ready to raise bus fares. So what better time for the Seattle Times to call for, um, lowering bus fares? Here’s my summary oftheir argument:
Lowering fares will make it easier for more people to ride the bus. The more people ride the bus, the less congested the roads will be for everybody. (Note that they only think this applies to buses, not light rail.) Hence, lowering fares (and expanding the Ride Free Zone) will make the roads work better.
The first problem with the Times’ plan is that most people choose to ride or not ride the bus based on convenience, not cost. (A quarter here or there doesn’t deter anybody, ridership studies show.) The second is that by starving Metro of revenues, a fare-lowering plan would actually render Metro unable to buy the buses it needs to serve new passengers. So the crowded, unpleasant experience of riding Metro now would be an even more crowded, more unpleasant experience tomorrow.
I’m guessing the Seattle Times editorial board knows this. People who support adding vast numbers of riders to the bus system while cutting the revenues that would make the bus system able to serve those riders are people, like the members of the Times editorial board, who don’t ride the bus. For them, crowding more of us onto buses is a win-win; they can say they support transit, while heavier transit use by other people makes it easier for them to drive to work alone. Those of us who actually do ride the bus on a daily basis know that Metro needs more revenues, not less, if they’re going to make the system better.
Last week, I sat down with Metro general manager Kevin Desmond in his office overlooking Occidental Park. He’d called me in response to a column I wrote two weeks ago calling for the creation of a transit riders’ union to lobby elected officials on behalf of Metro riders. While he acknowledged many of the conditions I complained about—crowding, passengers with hygiene issues, security problems, unreliable buses—are real, he contended that Metro is making progress.
“We’re coming off a period of very little investment,” Desmond said. “We had four years of doing nothing [thanks to depressed revenues during the recession] just as ridership was booming.” Indeed, ridership has gone up 14 percent in 2007 alone. Job growth, worsening traffic, and increased concern about pollution and global warming have pushed more and more people onto public transit. As a result, the number of buses that are overcrowded—essentially, buses where people can’t find a seat—has more than doubled since 2002. Metro anticipates some relief early next year, when 22 new buses will come online. Right now, though, the improvements are minor. “People are going to have to be patient. The buses are going to be crowded for a little longer,” Desmond said. “Once we get new buses we’ll be able to really strike at the peak (rush) hours.”
Although you wouldn’t know it to read the Times’ editorial, Metro hasn’t raised fares since 2001. Peak fares remain $1.50; off-peak fares, $1.25. Those numbers will go up in March, to $1.75 and $1.50, respectively. Desmond says Metro needs the extra revenue to pay for higher operating and fuel costs (which have tripled in the last six years), and to operate and maintain all the new buses funded by Transit Now. “It’s like building an extension onto your house,” Desmond says. “You build the extension but then you have additional costs, like heating and maintenance. Transit now was the expansion. The fare increase makes the program whole.”
In addition to adding more buses, Desmond says that Metro hopes to speed up service by adopting a new all-purpose fare card, called Orca, that will apply to Sound Transit, the ferry system, and all bus systems in the region; by allowing riders to buy tickets from vending machines at transit hubs like Northgate; and potentially by allowing people to board and scan their fare cards at all three doors, so riders don’t have to queue up at the front end of the bus.
Metro also plans to beef up security on and around buses, adding 25 more transit cops to the 47 already in place. That won’t make much of a dent in the overall system—with 1,100 buses in the system, it’ll be hard for 72 cops to keep track of all of them—but it’s a start. Metro’s also adding between 140 and 160 bus cameras to the 110 already in place by the middle of next year. Cameras, Desmond says, gives Metro “a better ability to deter things. The fact that cameras are on the buses says, if you mess up, Big Brother’s watching.”
All of that seems like good news to me. Complaining about the bus system, as I frequently do, is pointless if we aren’t willing to help improve it. The challenge will be holding King County’s feet to the fire to make sure they approve the funding Metro needs to make those and other improvements—instead of catering to folks like the Seattle Times editorial board, who wouldn’t know the inside of a bus if it walked up and peed on them.
I never pay to ride the bus, My employer offers us the FlexPass and I use it all the time.
well, good thing we're not about to enter another recession, driven by the mortgage/credit crisis. That would mean those 22 new busses are the only ones we get for a loooong time...
I suspect you don't know this because you would never ride Metro outside of Seattle, but Peak fares are either $1.50 or $2 depending on how many zones you are talking about....it's probably too much to ask of the Stranger's crack reporting team, but you can learn more about it here: http://transit.metrokc.gov/tops/bus/fare/fare-info.html
Nobody seems to be worried about a quarter here and a quarter there, but over the course of the month it adds up. I used to ride the bus, but it cost about the same in gas to drive as it did to ride so I stopped taking the bus.
I did factor environmental concerns into my decision, but when it was all said and done, I'd just much rather drive than take the bus.
If the bus was FREE, it might actually provide the incentive to make me start taking it again. Or maybe it wouldn't.
Metro, ST and SDOT should accelerate the rapid ride program and get more express busses on the street asap. The other imrpovements like the bulbs and fiber optics and such can come later as schduld but waiting four years to start the service is too long.
A transit only proposal should come in 2008 not 2009 and should include light rail and bus improvements.
We need to institute a standrad of 15 minute (or less) headways (on major routes).
We need to get rid of rigid formulas to allocate service hours and instead put more busses on the overcrowded routes.
And kudos for fare cards, anything that speeds up boarding is a big help.
I'd pay $2 a ride for a bus that was FUCKING ON TIME! Not 5 minutes early. Not 20 minutes late. ON TIME!
47+25=72 cops not 62. Do you also work for the UW daily or are you just bad at math because you are a girl?
@GoodGrief
She went to West Seattle that one time. Doesn't that count?
@Clint
If cost had been what drove you back to your car, you would have counted insurance, maintenance and replacement cost of the car, not just gas. You drive your car because it sucks less, not the quarters.
Maybe Metro can focus on the quality of drivers they have hired. Yeah, they kept this one on until someone was killed despite complaints. I LOVE unions!!!
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/340423_bus21.html?source=rss
You don't need cops on all 1,100 buses. You need them on specific problematic routes that are prone to violence. I think 67 is still too low, but I don't think that we'd need even 200.
47 cops plus 25 cops= 72 cops not 62 as you stated.
Maybe the president of Harvard was right.
@GoodGrief
She went to West Seattle that one time. Doesn't that count?
@Clint
If cost had been what drove you back to your car, you would have counted insurance, maintenance and replacement cost of the car, not just gas. You drive your car because it sucks less, not the quarters.
Maybe Metro can focus on the quality of drivers they have hired. Yeah, they kept this one on until someone was killed despite complaints. I LOVE unions!!!
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/340423_bus21.html?source=rss
Buses should be priced as expensively as possible.
To keep the riff-raff out.
didn't buss fair used to cost more? i seem to remember paying $1.85 or something when i was going to school.
ECB....GRRRR
Seriously, I feel like I have met you somewhere before...Oh yeah, at SCCC, along with hundreds of others just like you- all full of opinion and completely empty of thought. Though I must hand it to you, as you have truly outdone yourself this time.
Fares should be ELIMINATED.
Public transit should not be supported in part or in whole by a user fee. Either a gas tax or a general tax should support our transit.
This removes several barriers: cost, convenience (waiting for people to pay as they enter or exit seriously slows down service and having to find the exact change to pay sucks as well), and it would help make riding transit a more welcoming experience to first time users who are often confused enough as it is.
Also, having our transit paid by those who DON'T use it is vital. Not only because I have subsidized car owners my entire life while not having owned a car EVER and I want pay back, but also because it makes a statement that transit is a community service that should be invested in and funded by the entire community.
It makes very little sense to me to monetarily punish people for engaging in behaviors that you are trying to promote. "Hey everyone! Get out of your cars and stop polluting...oh and ride this craptastic bus, that stops a mile from where you want to be, and only runs every hour on the weekend, and stops service at 6pm so you'll have to take a few transfers to get back home, of and did I mention that the bus stop isn't covered from the elements and is in a pretty shady area? You still up for it? Yeah? Oh....wow...Great! That will be $1.75! Only have a $5 on you? Sorry no change. Go sit down."
And you know what? I promise you I take the bus more than you. I spend more of my time on the bus than you do: complaining about riding on the bus, feeling superior to those that don't ride the bus, and talking to people about how great you are for riding the bus COMBINED.
So please, for the love of God. JUST. SHUT. UP.
I am so tired of you undermining the things you claim to support with your half-baked and knee-jerk opinions.
I think Ms. Barnett brought this up in a previous article, but what the fuck is with the Ride Free Zone?? Get rid of that shit now! The ONLY people who use that are bums, downtown condo owners, and tourists. The great majority of us RARELY ride around within the tiny-ass walking distance area that it covers. Doing away with it would keep the riff-raff out and get a little extra cash for us from these condo owners and tourists who NO DOUBT can afford it. Why should our Metro system cater to tourists anyway? Its specifically for working class people to get around, tourists should gladly fork up a few bucks for that cause, just like every other damn city around! NY sure as hell doesnt let you ride free on the subway just because you dont live there. Absurd!
ECB, while I am as much of a fan of transit as you are, sometimes you fudge the facts. Seattle Times has a silly bias against light rail, but you mis-characterize their report at times. The Times did in fact very clearly mention that rates were last risen in 2001 ("Kevin Desmond, Metro's general manager, says costs have risen 37 percent since Metro imposed its last fare increase, in 2001.") and they also made mention of their intention to not reduce revenue, but rather get it through other means ("Metro gets $80 million a year from the fare box and, absent a change in state taxing authority, has no other source for that amount. But, laws can be changed.")
In addition, you said: "...most people choose to ride or not ride the bus based on convenience, not cost" which you bold to imply a fact helping your cause. The article you link to states, "Metro says the most-important reason people ride the bus is convenience, not price." The Times responds to your bolded statement before you even make it: "Grant that — but even if the level of fares is the second-most-important reason, it is an incentive worth thinking about."
I agree that raising bus fares seems like a fine thing. Even if the Seattle Times incorrectly opines that more highway lanes are the fix for our transportation woes, a daily that ends an editorial about buses with "people need to start thinking of Metro more like a public library — an enterprise funded with tax money in order to encourage the maximum number of people to use it," does not deserve such an unfair characterization of their work.
There was no need to unfairly blast the Times' editorial. It was more supportive of your position than not, and was more disagreeing with your opinion than missing the substance of the facts. If you wanted to make a post about meeting with Metro and some improvements we have to look forward to, then you should have done so without blasting an article -- one that encourages a positive perception of Metro buses.
Or maybe they could have an adjustable fare schedule.
$2.50 to ride in First Class; $1.50 to ride in Steerage....
@11: I'm OK at math. I'm not so good at typing. Just fixed it.
@16. Thank you so much for going off on me, completely anonymously, for expressing my opinion. Sadly for you, I will not "JUST.SHUT.UP." Not even for the love of God. If you hate Slog so much, for the love of God, PLEASE. STOP. READING.
@16 Calm yourself buddy. Its true that if we didnt have to pay for the bus thing would be great! BUT, judging by the past few months with transit measures its pretty fuckin unlikely that you will pass a huge ass transit bill anytime soon. That being true, METRO NEEDS MONEY. Period. Unfortunately if the ridership isnt willing to foot the bill no one will. I agree wholeheartedly that getting on and off the bus would be easier if people didnt have to pay ON THE BUS. Hmmm, good thing metro is putting in kiosks, or you can always buy a quarterly pass like an intelligent person.
"Hey everyone! Get out of your cars and stop polluting...oh and ride this craptastic bus, that stops a mile from where you want to be, and only runs every hour on the weekend, and stops service at 6pm so you'll have to take a few transfers to get back home, of and did I mention that the bus stop isn't covered from the elements"
Im really sure that cutting Metro spending will really help SOLVE these problems. Im sorry, the reality is fares need to rise. At least for now.
Is ORCA really behind schedule? Maybe I'm misrembering, but I thought that it was supposed to be up and running by early next year. That, giving passes to every taxpayer, or requring tokens to ride, would really speed up the loading/unloading process that seems to really slow down the system.
@17
I used to support the idea of charging ONLY for commutes beginning and ending in the ride-free area and making it free everywhere else. But, the whole process of collecting money at each stop would cripple service. Better I think to just make the bus system free everywhere, all the time.
The homeless issue is not that big of a deal and I am sure that expanding the area to include all of Bellevue (snicker) and other areas so that our homeless could expand their knowledge of the region while giving our neighbors a chance to untilize their spare change collection service wouldn't hurt anyone.
Wow, misogynists sure get pissed when women have controversial opinions. Or, in this case, ANY opinion.
Dan laughs at southerners for getting screwed by global warming, and the reaction is not nearly as angry as when ECB says "I have no problem that bus fare is going to go up $0.25."
Just another reason I'm voting Hillary Clinton for president...
I was in the ORCA test group, seems like ages ago, must have been last December or January. My guess is they are having a hard time buying enough of the readers to put on all the buses.
ECB...how much money did you waste on the schooling it took to learn how to express the stupidest opinion in with such good grammar and an authoritative tone?
People take the bus because it's the only ballgame in town. When you raise the fairs, poor people (I know your hate them but let's not get hung up on that right now.) have no choice but to comply. You're not considering the diapers and food and housing costs that their already stretched dollar must somehow magically stretch further to cover a fair hike on the buses?
You want people off the roads and out of their cars yesterday but you're gonna lament it's impact on bus capacities?
You choose to see the give and take of less cars vs. crowded bus but not $2 fairs = a new $45 per month bill most poor people are going to have to rethink their lives over?
You have this unrealistic, utopian idealism that consumes just as much of your thought power as it would campaigning for cheaper, cleaner, renewable fuels.
It all seems so driven by identity and negativity. Regardless, way to find another thinline between "pushy idealist" and "out of touch privelege" to do roundoffs and cartwheels all over.
Hey, check out the brains on Erica, she's got the transit thing re-figured out for us...again...still. Thanks Erica, we knew you could do it. You always do.
I just want to take a moment to express my love for ECB. Vegetarian, feminist, cycling, city-hall watching, metro-riding ECB. I love her. I always look for her tiny grainy face when I read the paper each week.
Huge crush on her. Huge.
@20 Not sadly for me, just irritating. I hardly ever post as much of what I find on slog I agree with and much of what is left I at least can respect the other person's opinion as it is well thought out and follows the poster's overall stance on a particular issue.
You on the other hand are unique in taking one side of an issue and then blogging off opinions that undermine what you claim to support or bolster those you claim to oppose.
Ex:
Erika opinion 1: More user Fees for car riders because we want to discourage car riding.
Erika opinion 2: More user Fees for bus riders because we want mor people to ride buses.
Can you truly not see how half-assed your opinions are?
@24 Yes! I am attacking her because she is a woman, not because her opinion is crap. Reading back I can totally see how it was her gender I was attacking and not her "thoughts". My bad. I apologize.
Why does every post on Slog have to take gratuitous swipes at the Times? Their editorial does NOT call for reduced revenues for Metro (it specifically talks about other sources than fares) -- yet in order to bolster your argument you totally mischaracterize their point.
That's the Fox News style of debate: misstate the entire thrust of your opponent's position and then savage them. It's pretty damn weak.
@20, you hypocritically made fun of laura onstot recently for a simple math error.
If buses were free they'd be rolling Honey Buckets.
I agree about the cost not being much of a deterrent for riding the bus. It would be a great source of much needed income for transit to have a price increase. That said though; I feel that the monthly passes should be much much cheaper. You should not have to ride the bus 4 times a day just to break even for the month.
If you live in San Franciso, you pay $1.50 to ride, and your transfer is valid on all Muni streetcars, buses, and cable cars. If you buy a Fast Pass (their monthly pass) it costs you $45.00 dollars, and you get all of the above AND you can ride BART within the city limits. Compare that to Seattle's current cost of riding the bus ($1.50 peak) and the monthly pass costing $54.00, and all you get is the bus...with limited service at best. Who is getting screwed? We are.
She wants to work at the Times, but they won't hire her.
Clearly the Mob of Slog has spoken. ECB must be eliminated.
how about some fast, frequent light rail?
eh?
eh?
who's with me?
Do you know what has vastly improved my blog reading experience? Any comment that starts with a litany of insults before discussing their opinion on the matter at hand gets skipped. If you can't express your thoughts without ad hominem attacks, your thoughts do not deserve to be read. I suggest others adopt this strategy; the trolls' food supply would dwindle drastically.
Personal attacks have no place in discussing the merits of raising bus fare. I know, I know, lots of people think they have the "right" to point out what an idiot they think other people are and make vicious attacks on their character willy nilly, but as I am disgusted by that kind of behavior I choose to ignore it.
Now let the vicious, personal attacks on my character and intellect begin. I won't be reading them.
@31 - Damn right, dude.
Coming from a city with more expensive fares than Seattle (Vancouver, to be exact, where the fare is $2.25/3.25/4.50 depending on how many zones you cross), the increased revenue is definitely a boon to public transit. The key is to make it affordable to the people for whom it needs to be: make it simple for employers to subsidize transit for employees, negotiate student fares through student societies (I pay $26 per month for unlimited transit through my university), etc. This allows the system to make a profit, which it can then re-invest in improving service and adding routes. It's actually pretty simple economically. As a result, Vancouver's just purchased a huge new fleet of buses, is adding two new rapid transit lines, and is replacing the seabus vessels.
The pending Olympic Games certainly helped push investment along, but quality public transit in dense coastal cities is a must. I absolutely hate riding the bus in Seattle, and wouldn't mind paying another whole dollar per trip if it meant that they might be on time and less dirty.
Damn, some of you people are so dense. Her point isn't that Metro SHOULD raise fares, but rather that lowering fares wouldn't make more people ride the bus, because the main reasons that people DON'T ride the bus are that the bus is inconvenient and uncomfortable, not too expensive. But the Mercer Island-dwelling Times editors do not realize this. Do you bus to work, Mr. Vesely? Mr. Blethen? I didn't think so.
What pisses me off most about the Times' self-righteous editorial this morning is not that they are advocating lower bus fares. Because yes, ideally, riding the bus would be even cheaper. (It's already quite cheap, even if you commute from outside Seattle, as Erica should note. Two-zone fares are more than one-zone.) But the fools at the Times Editorial Page don't seem to read their own damn paper, because just two days ago they had another editorial moaning about the new taxes the county imposed. I hate to break this to our financially challenged Times editors, but money that you spend on something, like expanded bus service, comes from somewhere, like taxes. It would have been refreshing to see the Times exercise some intellectual honesty on this point for once.
Couple of suggestions:
1. Missing a movie because the (easy to anticipate for transit) Seahawks game made the bus lines thru Fremont (5,16) late by 30 minutes - not ok.
2. Instead of a free ride zone, make it 25 cents. Flat. Downtown. No new transfers, but you can use a transfer to get on.
3. Double local bus service.
4. Increase frequency to every 5-10 minutes - everywhere downtown.
5. No new highways. Ever. Rebuilds are fine, new interchange fine, new HOV/transit fine.
6. Double the other transit services - streetcar, monorail, water taxi - too.
7. Require new cars and trucks bought by businesses delivering to Seattle or in Seattle to get 40 mpg. You can buy 80 mpg trucks in France right now. Stop whining. Just do it.
8. If traffic jams exist - shut down one lane to all non-transit use every two streets. And enforce it.
Good reporting. I appreciate the work you've done on this.
"Hey... do you have an extra $10 I could have for the bus?"
I've requested that Tim Eyman file an initiative requesting a 8/11ths majority vote to approve this proposed fare increase.
Hey Will in Seattle, you forgot some more points--
9. Pay for this all with a tax that hurts nobody and that everybody pays regardless of personal benefit.
10. Have magical fairies fly in and dust your troubles away any time you need it
Maybe now they can afford to hire someone to clean the buses!
@45 - sure, how about a tax on all people named Tim Eyman or dumb enuf to vote for his ideas?
I'm not sure about your diet suggestion - is that what you Red Bushies eat?
I would gladly pay an extra $0.50 if it meant dozens more transit cops on the buses.
#33 Stephenie points at a decent compromise.
Either lower the price of the monthly pass or cap them, and allow the fare box price to rise. Monthly pass holders are students, commuters, etc., the people you are trying most to convenience into leaving their cars behind.
$45 monthly passes would be fair. If that multiple zone shit is really necessary, price a 2 zone pass accordingly. People at an economic disadvantage, like students and the disabled already have access to discount passes, as they should.
Do more to encourage more employers to purchase passes for their employees.
More passes = quicker boarding times = more timely buses.
Kill the free ride zone.
The bus will always suck, IT'S THE BUS, but until something better gets built, it could be made a helluvalot better.
so it seems that fares have not risen since 2001.
then why has the U-PASS fee gone from $31/quarter in 2001 to $44/quarter in 2007?
The comments made so far are fair criticisms of Metro: cleanliness of buses, the hygiene-challenged, overcrowding, security issues and payment regimes. And I would add the fact that Metro has one of the most archaic public announcement systems of any region in the country. But the number one deterrent to people riding the bus still remains to be Reliability. Studies have shown that people will start switching to transit only when it is offered at least every 10 minutes and arrives at the destination on time.
The only way to really get people on transit is to get people out of traffic and in dedicated right-of-ways that do not compete with private vehicles. This could either be BRT or Light Rail, or ideally, a combination of both. I just got off Route 16, where I sat in the concrete ditch of Broad as it passes beneath Aurora. It took 15 minutes to go two blocks. The bus had no advantages over the SOVs next to it. Given the choice of how one would prefer to spend this quarter hour of their life, sitting on the bus with the muttering old guy or sitting on your heated leather seats, many will remain in their cars. Time is the most valuable commodity of all. For transit to be preferable, it must save people's time, not money.
Killing the "free ride zone" and raising the fare might be a good way to keep the human garbage off the bus. At least you could hire transit cops to keep them from getting on. I might trade my Audi for a bus pass if it were fit for normal people.
Nickels was on KIRO710 and he said that when he was on the Metro board they lowered fees to, he thought, $0.25 and that ridership INCREASED 20% during the test period.
now, if thats what it took to get 20% more ridership, presumably people who were driving or carpooling previously, then that is a good thing.
In addition, if the funds currently being devoted towards Sound Transit were shifted to the bus programs in the region to subsidize new buses and the fares, then we have something that might just work. Of course, that'll never happen. It makes too much friggin sense.
I wholeheartedly agree with the elimination of the Ride Free Area, which would both severely reduce Metro's junkie population and eliminate the Pay As You Enter/Pay As You Leave hassle. If all passengers are forced to pay before they can board, you'd also have far fewer assholes skipping out on their fares. Same for eliminating cash and requiring cards or tickets, provided they are sufficiently easy to purchase.
Now if there were some way to ban the insufferable fucks who demand use of the lift at one stop only to get off at the next a block away.
Fare increase: I'm for it. More money for Metro is a good thing.
More bus lanes: Yeah, that too. That 49 things document Metro already put out in the Viaduct timeframe is a great start. Also, make the express lanes HOV-only.
Making Seattle more expensive for working schmucks who have to take the bus - well, I'm proud to say I'm against it.
Let us take, for example, a relatively well-paid service sector employee such as a line worker at Dick's Drive-Ins, who makes all of $9/hr.
Increase fares .25 cents, and that's .50 cents a day, $2.50 a week, and about $10 per month - or close to an hours worth of work and a bag of groceries for my not-so-hypothetical worker.
Believe it or not, folks, that is real money to a lot of people - and that's just their work commute.
Oh, and I like the ride free zone, too.
You guys are spoiled. You should try the St. Louis buses. But you wouldn't appreciate the best part of them, which is the crazy people, because you all want to put cops on the buses.
I want my buses free, and full of crazies, and subsidized by the car owners. Thank you.
Sorry, but after another 14-hour day at work, the last thing I need to "appreciate" is some nutjob sparking up a crack pipe* and shitting himself*.
* As Seen on Metro Transit™
Clean the buses daily and keep the people off the buses who the drivers KNOW have no intention of paying and then maybe people will take the bus. BTW, why does anyone think that light rail will be any different? It will have the same drugged out freaks who will stiff Metro riding on light rail. It will just be faster.
@56: Very noble of you, Mr. X, but you forgot to mention how Metro pays for the fuel cost increases while freezing fares. And where do you get a bag of groceries for ten bucks?
JR - that's a far more legitimate reason to increase fares than "keeping human garbage off of the bus."
You might try shopping at Safeway instead of Whole Foods - $10 will buy you a 5 lb bag of potatoes, a dozen eggs, a cheap loaf of bread, a couple of cans of tuna fish (or other cheapo lunch meat), 5 top ramens, a frozen Banquet dinner, and still leave you $1.25 for the bus fare home.
this could represent a burden on lower-income folks, but it's an honest reflection of the costs of fuel, which is presenting far more of a burden on those same folks, and is undoubtedly representing an undue burden on Metro at this point. If you're going to argue against fare increases, it's only responsible to work towards other means of getting the bills paid at Metro, like tax increases.
That was a response to @56, BTW.
@61: Yum!
More employers should subsidize bus passes and Metro should eliminate the ride-free zone downtown. I ride the bus 90 percent of the time and my only complaint is the FREAKS that get on with a load in their pants, squawking profanities at any and all within earshot, deciding that I'm their next girlfriend, picking fights with the driver, nodding off on my shoulder, etc. My pass is subsidized, which saves a bundle, but over the years of riding and getting to know other passengers, it's amazing to hear that folks have to pay more than $3 just to get to work.
@65, it's ok Erica, we know how you feel.
@64,
Well, you could substitute a 24 ouncer of Icehouse to wash it down for one of the cans of tuna if you'd prefer...
I do have one complaint that the bus backers seem to always have. They say that the individuals that ride the bus are making the commute better, however, in my many years of bus ridership I would hazard a hypothesis that the great majority of the riders do not own, or lack the ability, to aquire, or drive a car. It will always be "craptastic" becauase most of us think that commuting, or real life in general-should always be pleasant-it isn't but happiness can be divorced from pleasure-just ask the happy mother who just crapped out a baby.
One another note, perhaps I am a bit technologically unsaavy but why don't buses have the light right of way like the light rail will have? Maybe during rush hour the lights would go green for the buses?
Increase in fare would hurt those that struggle to make ends meet, but I think that we could assist that in different ways-ORCA discounts for low income etc.
Also give a % of toll fares (have tolls on the bridges and surrounding downtown) toward Metro-and it is another way to have a benefit of not driving-not paying tolls
Go bus riders
the intrepid few who bravely go where vomit and gross misdemeanors follow.
The Seattle Times ed board proves how completely out to lunch they are on transportation issues. They contradict themselves at every turn.
First, they cite the fact KC Metro costs have risen 40% since 2001. (Fact is, that new one-tenth sales tax infusion we approved for Ron Sims last year will be eaten alive by inflation and high operating costs in a couple years.)
Then, they say we should REDUCE farebox revenues, driving the need for yet another sales tax increase.
The obvious message being sent by high bus operating costs: at some point, you need to build a light rail spine to reduce the waste of precious service hours, and use buses to feed rail lines which have much lower operations and maintenance costs over the long run.
That's how every other city does it.
Whenever a conservative anti-tax / anti-rail zealot over at Kemper Development Corporation tells you "we can do it with buses," you can tell him he is simply rolling a rock up a steep hill. Financial realities are like gravity: at some point that rock rolls right back down....
Then again, reality never got in the way of a conservative talking point.
"I am so tired of you undermining the things you claim to support with your half-baked and knee-jerk opinions."
Johnny, by supporting fare-free buses, you actually prove how ill informed you are on the matter.
Fare-free means all kinds of security issues, and has been a failure every place it's been tried. The downtown ride-free zone shows how you can push middle-class and working people off the bus by making many buses the "homeless express."
Personally, I can deal with these folks. But your average Joe tries it once, and goes back to his car. Making buses free will only cement the stereotype of public transportation being for the poor and carless.
I ride the bus downtown everyday, and not just on the commute in and out of downtown.
Yes there is the occasional crazy/smelly person, but lord reading these comments one would think every bus is full of transients that fling poo.
Guess, what? They are not.
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