I'm so happy you mentioned a reduced-rate fare! I'm guessing the reason fare has been so low for so long is that for years the system has been primarily serving the low-income who couldn't afford to commute any other way. And now the reason have increased demand is because middle and higher income folks are trying to save money or be green or whatever by taking the bus - but it's not the necessity it is for lower income people.

The thing with a reduced income fare system is that it would take awhile to get that infrastructure in place, and without it and immediate jump would be really, really painful for a lot of people.

I'm still waiting for Cascadia to put out a white paper on whether the Earth is flat or not.

They aren't entirely clear on that one.

Wait.... isn't what he proposing to turn Metro into is a Rapid Transit System?

A rose by any other name, is still a fucking rose.

@Simonian: it'd be a huge change, yes. But if you think Metro is broken (as a public transit system, as opposed to a way for low-income people to get around), then a big change is needed. If Metro provided real data about when and how many people used buses, and where they travel to, we might be able to settle whether it'd be a wash or not. I can't say--I'm only assuming that the majority of bus boardings occur as people go to and from work, rather than toodle around neighborhood.

@kasa: the reduced rate fare is key--personally I'm happy with tax money subsidizing that, rather than keeping rates artificially low for people who can afford to pay market rate so that low-income people can afford the bus, too.

@MattG1: actually, normally I agree. In the past, I've argued that the bus might as well be free because of the gains you get from its use. However, there are two caveats: 1) fuel costs are way up, and non-market-reflective pricing is digging a huge hole for all of transit. 2) I think price is the least of the ridership barriers, behind comfort, convenience, and reliability--if higher fares can improve those, it might be worth it.

@romulus: well, I'm using "commuters" for anyone who could use a bus to get to work, say from Rainier Valley or Montlake to downtown. But yes, part of the solution is for the different agencies to focus on what they're best at, and price accordingly. Actually a while ago Seattlest was wondering why the Free Ride Zone is free--we were told it helps get buses in and out of the central core faster. But surely that can be dealt with another way.

@Troy: I wouldn't say that from just this article. I think the issue is that Metro is going broke as is, and their strategy is just to keep bailing.

@pfft: yeah, I think you're right about the rise in boarding cost, unfortunately. But that would still be good to know. If you could take a cab for close to what it would cost to take a bus, something ain't right.

Seriously folks? Did nobody pretty much notice that the $3.50 fares is basically to make it so transit'd be appealing to the new, private contractors he wants to sell the system to? Sounds great! I can't wait to pay $3.50+ a trip for my trip on the SAFECO-Yellow Cab Shared Transportation Systems, LLC bus!

It's all about this idea that people who don't ride the bus shouldn't have to pay for it. But all of us with property (with or without cars) should have to pay for expanding and maintaining their suburb-expanding, sprawl-assisting roads? Sounds fair to me.

Great comment, [thename].

[MvB], how will raising fares fix any of the problems you mention in a way that raising taxes won't? Actually, raising fares will reduce reliability, since there will be more cars on the road.

@MvB: I fear that raising fares along with taxes to get Metro out of its pending red is just one more giant stick with which anti-transit, pro-car folks will add to their arsenal of straw men, ideological muckraking, and elitist NIMBY-ism. It all points to a privatized,

I'd suggest a different route: higher, progressive income/property taxation along with the same/lower fares. This removes the hypothetical stealing by upper-middle-class busriders and keeping the deal for low-income riders. Of course, tax increases for any reason save stadiums seem to be a third rail around here.

Any other bus riders willing to pay more in taxes to keep their buses running? Or is it just me?

[MvB] Price wouldn't need to be the primary reason people take the bus for this to be a bad idea. Basic economics tells us that an increase of the price of an elastic good necessarily decreases its demand.

Remember that back in 1998 we reduced, then in 1999 removed the vehicle excise tax that funds busses. Imagine the great service we'd have right now if we hadn't done that (don't forget it takes a good 7 years to start new bus service). Perhaps people won't want to tax themselves to add bus service. But either way shouldn't they be the ones to decide?

If you really want more busses, vote for ST2. There are millions of dollars worth of busses in that package, all of which will be on the road long before Metro can increase fares, raise funds, and order busses.

We're all in this together. Consumers over-spent on plasma TV's with home-equity loans on false valuations and the country underspent on infrastructure. We made our bed now we have to pay for it.

Either everybody should subsidize public transit through progressive incomes taxes OR they charge the true cost of ridership and then there needs to be a discount for low-income people to get passes. Either way seems to to work.

Then again, I'm no economist and sometimes I wonder why the people get to vote on every single issue. What's the point of elected leaders if we end up deciding all the legislation.

Maybe our legislative process needs to work more like "hot or not". Every new law goes out to the entire voting population as a "hot or not" poll.

@nerdseyeview

don't forget to factor in the actual daily cost of owning the car. it may not make up for the difference or it may, depending on the car.

eg. if you amortize a Honda Civic ($20K) over 10 years that's like $5-$8 dollars a day, depending on how much you assume for maintenance. and the owner of the car pays that every day regardless of days he's carpooling.

(it's actually even higher if you factor in the time-value of money which assumes you could invest the $20K and earn a few percent interest on it)

of course, if you buy used it's less, but a used car also won't last as long.

I don't know exactly how the math works out but people often forget that they paid for the car when they do transit math.

The wheels on da bus go round & round.

Higher fares=fewer riders.
Fewer riders=lower revenues.
Lower revenues=fewer buses/less service.
Fewer buses/less service=fewer riders=lower revenue.
Lower revenue=need for more revenue=higher fares

On the other hand, more riders=more demand
more demand=need for more equipment=bigger budget

Bigger budget=need for higher fares ...

The wheels on da bus go round & round.

Answer: buses should be free (except downtown, where the charge should be $5 to keep vagrants off the system).

@Charles, Ronald: I've lived in Seattle for 20 years. I don't think that during that time bus ridership as a proportion of geographic population served has gotten over 5%. My back-of-the-envelope estimates are that currently, if the bus is only used by people getting to and from work, the percentage is 10%. That's a false assumption, I think the real number is below 5%, but I point it out to show that low fares--which I think are historically behind us--only get so many people on the bus.

More to the point, low fares have created a second-class transportation system that just "gets you there." Not necessarily on time, and not in comfort. Its operational structure is built around getting a small percentage of people around Seattle, and it's so consistently strapped for cash, it can't even keep its route maps and schedules updated. Now what we're seeing is, the system is so fragile, it can't handle an increase of just 20% of that 5%. (We can add more buses, but we haven't allotted the extra money to run them on more expensive fuel; you can't run a transit system on money delivered via transit initiatives.)

I appreciate that bus service would be super convenient if it were free. I appreciate that higher fares might cut down on non-essential trips. But from where I'm sitting, I don't see a system that can adequately fund itself, and I don't believe that a non-bus-using 90% is ever going to tax itself heavily enough to support anything beyond a "gets you there" system.

Short-term, you will see higher fares, regardless. The only question is, how much higher? And is it worth it to change the fare structure so that bus riders--not non-bus-riders--are the primary stakeholders and can demand the kind of bus service they'd like?

Rebuilding the business model of Metro strikes me as an opportunity to rob the anti-transit crowd of their biggest, historically proven stick. But that's only if we're willing to look past leftie transit-funding dogma ("People should be glad to pay for it even if they don't use it!") and deal with realities that have dogged transportation funding for the past 40 years.

But [MvB], the point you're missing is that even at $3.50 per way, under your model you're still just getting by with the system we have - not adding busses, not improving service. You're creating incentives to drive in the name of some Eyman-like no-tax funding scheme that will kill bus service. Again, please remember that Tim Eyman schemes got us into this mess.

Oh, and fuel is only about 13% of Metro's costs. So let's not pretend this 200% increase in fees is meant to make up for that.