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Chinese“Scenario 29″ final fare proposal approved
Contributed by calwatch on May 24th, 2007 at 6:08 pm
[tags]metro, los angeles, fare hikes, public hearing, bottleneck blog, public transit[/tags]
Here are the details of the fare proposal, for all categories. I had to take a photo of a reporter’s copy of this because some flack at Metro PR refused to give me a copy or let me look at it. The increase is cryptically called “Scenario 29″ and it was approved 9-4 (the Mayor’s votes the only no votes). “Scenario 29″ calls for increases of approximately 20% on a biennial basis. Fare table after the jump…
Edit 5/24/07 8:40 pm: Special thanks to MetroRiderLA reader Tim Buchheim for formatting fare data from Calwatch.
| Fare type | Current | July 2007 | July 2009 | July 2011 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cash Fare | $1.25 | $1.25 | $1.50 | $1.80 |
| Day Pass | $3.00 | $5.00 | $6.00 | $7.25 |
| Weekly Pass | $14.00 | $17.00 | $20.00 | $24.00 |
| Monthly Pass | $52.00 | $62.00 | $75.00 | $90.00 |
| EZ Monthly Pass | $58.00 | $70.00 | $84.00 | $100.00 |
| Senior/Disabled/Medicare Cash Fare | $0.45 | $0.55 | $0.65 | $0.75 |
| Senior/Disabled/Medicare “Off Peak” Cash Fare (Weekdays 9am - 3pm, after 7pm, plus Weekends/Holidays) | —- | $0.25 | $0.30 | $0.35 |
| Senior/Disabled/Medicare Day Pass | $1.50 | $1.80 | $2.15 | $2.55 |
| Senior/Disabled/Medicare Monthly Pass | $12.00 | $14.00 | $17.00 | $21.00 |
| Senior/Disabled/Medicare EZ Monthly Pass | $29.00 | $35.00 | $42.00 | $50.00 |
| K-12 Monthly Pass | $20.00 | $24.00 | $29.00 | $35.00 |
| College Pass | $30.00 | $36.00 | $43.00 | $52.00 |
| No discounts provided for token customers or for owl service, or midday service on Lines 40 and 42. Semimonthly Pass eliminated. | ||||
| Zone Charges per Zone | $0.50 | $0.60 | $0.70 | $0.85 |
| Senior/Disabled/Medicare Zone Fare | $0.25 | $0.30 | $0.35 | $0.40 |
| Zone Stamps (per zone, same cost for EZ or Metro stamp) | $15.00 | $18.00 | $22.00 | $26.00 |
| Senior/Disabled/Medicare Zone Stamp | $7.50 | $9.50 | $9.50 | $9.50 |
| Interagency Transfer | $0.25 | $0.30 | $0.35 | $0.40 |
| Senior/Disabled/Medicare Interagency Transfer | $0.10 | $0.10 | $0.10 | $0.15 |
| Estimated Fare/Boarding | $0.60 | $0.71 | $0.80 | $0.87 |
Discussion
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Please keep discussions civil: exercise Troll Controll.
I’ve posted it as a table here
Thanks for the table Tim, as you can see I’ve modified the formatting slightly and added it to Calwatch’s post.
Thanks Calwatch for taking a photo of the reporter’s copy and providing us with this essential information about the fare increases!
Well, look what happened. The fare increases that got passed ultimately were not as large and draconian as previously announced. The original announced increases were merely red herrings so that when the ACTUAL fare increases were announced, they would seem reasonable and tolerable by comparision. The same trick they pulled off by underestimating the ridership on the Orange Line. “Look at that! Ridership is well over our estimates!” Just like I predicted. Sometimes it hurts to be so right.
Some technical notes before I turn in for the night:
- The 2011 increases are technically “adopted” but not “authorized”, meaning that they are there as a baseline but have not yet been approved. Presumably in 2009 they are going to figure out if they can charge distance based fares (like Metrolink). Of course, in 2011 the TAP card may not yet be rolled out. (By 2006, tokens were supposed to be phased out to the TAP card.)
- An additional $5 million has been budgeted for tokens for poor people under the Immediate Needs Transportation Program.
I heard they were going to try and get the TAP card operating by the end of this year. I’ll believe it when I see it, but I hope they can do it.
Yes and the mayor saves face by acting as if he is on the poor people’s side and yes Scott, the fare increases to a level that MTA can work w/ while continuing to build its planned rail lines. Fare increases are long overdue and fare box recovery lags far behind other agencies that are charging $7 and $9 for their day passes. FUCK THE BRU!! An instrument of the car and oil lobbys. Should be called the BUS DRIVERS UNION!! RAIL WILL PREVAIL!!!
I don’t understand why people are so upset about the tactic of Metro “proposing” higher fares than they would eventually settle for. Isn’t that very common in dealings with money? When you go in for a raise, do you ask for exactly what you think you’ll get, or throw out a higher number? Is the price someone set on a used car exactly what you’re going to pay? What’s the big deal? As long as what actually gets approved is reasonable… which I think the “Section 29″ fares are. BRU would have reacted exactly the same if Metro had simply proposed these fares initially, and probably would have had to go with with something like Villaraigosa’s fake pretend $57.323221111111 political farce fares instead of something that would actually address the financial issues Metro faces.
I don’t think the 2011 fare will ever be implemented or at least not that soon. Also, I’d hope and guess by then we’d have a more transit-friendly White House and Governor.
And of course no one thought they were going to raise fares as high as they initially proposed. That’s not how politics or negotiations work.
Additionally, yea the Mayor’s proposal was a stunt. The fact that he didn’t use his weight to push it, tells me that too was a political act. Why would a politician support something that makes them look bad, when then already know its going to pass? Now Antonio can take the high-road and claim he was fighting for poor and working people, but was outnumbered and doesn’t lose much face with the BRU. Heck I wouldn’t be suprrised if he used this as the basis for expanding LA City’s power on the MTA board!
All politics baby - all the time.
I haven’t followed the politics or finances of this issue in close detail, but I wonder how much parking costs at the lots under/near the MTA’s Union Station HQ?
It would be a funny poltical victory if the rates for parking there were increased to pay the debt service on all that rail construction.
I’m glad you found the table useful.
I think the fare hike compromise is pretty reasonable, and the non-peak SDM fare is a pretty cool idea.
Why am I upset about the MTA’s “tatic” of too-high fare proposals and then settling for a lower fare increase?
Well, they really riled up the BRU, for one, which wasn’t necessary. Now the MTA has a potentially expensive lawsuit to defend themselves against, using MY (taxpayers’) money!
I don’t feel this was the same as negotiating for a raise with your boss. Such a negotiation would be a private matter. This is public policy, and it effects the public. That’s me, and that’s you. That’s why I demand honesty and forthrightness in deals like this.
They say a cynic is an idealist with a broken heart. There’s the nugget of truth. I wish our public officials would deal with us (the public) with truth and straightforward statements. But, when they don’t, it doesn’t surprise me. Doesn’t mean I have to like it, though.
There was going to be a lawsuit either way.
On the other hand, the BRU didn’t sue over the 2004 fare increase, when they very well could have. Aside from the day pass increases, on a percentage basis, the pass increases are not more than what MTA staff proposed in 2003 (”Option A”, http://www.mta.net/news_info/archives/2003/04_April/mta_042.htm for implementation in 2004. (The staff later, on the Board’s direction, watered it down to not increase prices for the discount fare categories.)
The main problems I had with the fare increase is how Metro staff and the Board procrastinated about this for months and months and then adopted it at the very last moment possible. The reason the hearing had to be held now (the rumor is that Molina was attempting to push it off on the next Board chair) was that the budget was due for adoption on June 20 and can’t be pushed back any further. Normally, by now, the budget would have been out for a month and the Board would have adopted it by the end of May.
As of 2004, the structural deficit didn’t exist (Snoble: “The result is that today the budget is balanced
and the structural operating deficit is solved, without having to propose a fare increase or go out for any special funding.” ) Now they cry poor, yet the process should have started months ago (as it did in 2004) with a staff proposal, public comment, board direction and revised staff proposal, and board adoption, which would have taken three months total. Instead, they rush the process, scare everyone to death, result in days of negative publicity to the agency, and force hundreds of people to show up to counter the process. Unfortunately, the folks in Chicago and Philadelphia are trying the same thing, so these CEOs must think this works. Shock and awe may work to get stuff approved, but it is a horrible means of public policy.
Incidentally, the only thing I am hoping for in this lawsuit is lots of discovery to prove that MTA did everything required of them, since the staff seems to deny public records requests without a lawyer behind them.
edit… link corrected
Calwatch, we may not agree on the process or the outcomes, but you are welcome anytime in the Metro Library on the 15th floor. We keep a digital reference shelf of agency reports and have digitized agency minutes from 1958 to the present along with a ton of other info. Please come visit.
‘But Mr Dent, the plans have been available in the local planning office for the last nine months.’
‘Oh yes, well as soon as I heard I went straight round to see them, yesterday afternoon. You hadn’t exactly gone out of your way to call attention to them had you? I mean like actually telling anybody or anything.’
‘But the plans were on display …’
‘On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.’
‘That’s the display department.’
‘With a torch.’
‘Ah, well the lights had probably gone.’
‘So had the stairs.’
‘But look, you found the notice didn’t you?’
‘Yes,’ said Arthur, ‘yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying Beware of the Leopard.’
Can the MTA put all that digitized stuff on the web? I don’t have a lot of time to weasel my way to the 15th floor of their HQ during work hours.
We’re working on it. The library has scanned 18,000 docs so far, more to come. ITS issues are getting in the way, hope to have them resolved soon. We want it on the web just as bad as you want to see it there. The library’s online catalog has links to full text materials held by others, I want to put links in for all internal Metro published docs - eirs, reports, studies, everything I can possibly put there. But just as in many gov agencies, our ITS support is stuck in some other decade…