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ChineseMetrolink fare hike: A picture with three frames
Photo by Fred Camino via Flickr. This and other photos can be seen on the MetroRiderLA Flickr pool.
Metrolink plans to raise its fares by January 1, increasing single-ticket prices 3 percent to 6 percent, making the price of 10-trip tickets the equivalent of 5 round trips, and suspending a discount for December monthly passes.
The board of directors of the Southern California Regional Rail Authority, the official agency name of Metrolink, will vote on the fare hikes 10 a.m. Friday, November 13. To go in person, the meeting will be held at 818 W. 7th St., 12th Floor, in downtown Los Angeles. It is accessible by the subway, Blue Line, many Metro local and Rapid bus lines, LADOT’s Downtown DASH lines and Santa Monica’s Big Blue Bus Line 10.
You can also submit your comments by e-mail, fax to (213) 452-0421, or mail to:
Metrolink Fares
700 South Flower Street, 26th Floor
Los Angeles, CA 90017
With the relevant fare hike information out of the way, let’s look at how three sources covered the fare hike angle: the Riverside Press-Enterprise, the Ventura County Star and the Metrolink media office. The Web headlines are the links to the stories.
Press-Enterprise: Metrolink mulling fare hike because of falling ridership
Dug Begley’s article had the most direct information centered around how it is going to impact the riders. It points out that Metrolink is facing a $5.5 million revenue shortfall and is also paying the added expenses of acquiring more trains, contracting its operations to Amtrak, making remedial safety additions after last year’s Chatsworth disaster, and no doubt preparing for an avalance of legal penalties resulting from said disaster.
Begley did not write the headline for the Web article, which wrongly blares the Kafka trumpet. Metrolink is seeking a fare hike, and ridership is falling. The latter is not the cause of the former. Metrolink doesn’t want to raise prices to make up for the ridership that disappeared.
Look, transit agencies know that any increase in fare is usually accompanies by a decrease in demand. They anticipate for this, and each agency usually looks at an elasticity curve to set these fares. Metrolink is one of the few agencies that had been able to raise fares without seeing a drop in demand, or even see ridership increases. SCRRA can’t count on that formula now.
Ventura County Star: Metrolink saves Santa but may raise fares
The blog angle! Who said old media was out of touch and doesn’t understand the Intertubes? By playing up the Santa Claus angle, the Star shows it can fluently speak snark, the lingua franca of the blogosphere.
(Note to lit-critters only [normal folks can skip past this]: Yes, I am aware of the tautological ramifications of using snark to define itself. For this breach of etiquette, I offer no apologies and should you wish to labor this point any further — as I am sure you will — I instead have another exercise: Visualize me with my middle digit raised at you and feel free to deconstruct the text of that message.)
Writer Tony Biasotti did touch upon an interesting angle, though. Saving Santa Claus referred to the holiday toy drive Metrolink conducts throughout the system. The Holiday Toy Express costs $231,700, but the Metrolink board unanimously voted against discontinuing the toy drive. This would actually make for a much more interesting story, as it puts readers at an agonizing position. There are very good reasons for keeping the holiday trains, especially in an economically precarious time such as now. And there are heartless but compelling financial reasons to cut the service. Tough conflicts like this make for the most engaging journalism.
The company line: Metrolink Board Takes Measures to Address Budget Deficit
Typical public relations mentality. How can you read that and not feel even more cynical?
This is the public agency variant of public relations procedure. Perceive the message as one that directs public anger due to agency inaction, then reframe it an active-voice message statement showing a clear subject (the board) and an action (taking measures).
PR is an offshoot of journalism, so the professionals should have some idea of what an inverted pyramid story is. Journalists and the public aren’t really concerned with what the board is doing. They are more concerned about fares going up. That’s the leading point.
At the time of writing this post, the release had not yet moved into the News Updates or Commuter Updates links, the places where the general public would search first for fare increase info. It was put in Media Room, which significantly narrows the audience.
This is the first sentence of the release. Note how long it takes to get to 3 percent:
At its meeting of Friday October 9, 2009, Metrolink’s Board of Directors responded to significant budgetary challenges due to lower than anticipated revenues, by authorizing a public outreach program to solicit public comment on a proposed increase in fares of between 3% …
Don’t operate heavy machinery after reading that sentence fragment.
The most important fact is how much the fares are going up. Next, you tell them about the public notice. The verbiage about the board is a tertiary detail.
One redeeming point of the article is the lengthy background and numbers of the fourth graf.
Now, MetroReaders, after reading these three articles, how do you think Metrolink should address its budget shortfall? Post it here, but more importantly, get it to Metrolink as well and make it part of the public record.
Discussion
Both comments and pings are currently closed.
Please keep discussions civil: exercise Troll Controll.
Metrolink isn’t planning to suspend the December discount. They’ve already done it.
Anyway, there’s two ways to look at this. If your plan is to simply save what’s left of your ridership, it’s a bad thing, but not that bad.
Metrolink riders on average make around $80,000 per year according to the last survey. It isn’t likely that a fare increase is going to put them off the train. The core ridership will bitch, but I don’t think too many are going to want to hop on I-5 again. My 10-trip will rise from $64 to $72-73, I think, under the worst case scenario. You know what? I’m still not driving to Universal City from Anaheim. Some people might even go back to driving and come back to the train after they are reminded of why they took the train in the first place.
I know you disagree, and that’s fine. But frequent riders already understand the benefits of taking the train versus the true cost of driving to and parking in downtown. Sure, they could go back to driving, but remember, the people left taking the train have probably seen their own incomes go down, or think they will go down, due to the economy, so despite the fare hike, the train remains a viable alternative to the car. Start making that 30, 40, 50 mile drive again and you’re going to have to make those auto repairs sooner rather than later.
However, if your plan is to grow ridership, it’s a terrible thing. The train will look like a worse deal to people sitting on the fence about buying a ticket. The majority of people already lowball the cost of driving and hold mass transit to a higher standard.
At the end of the day, though, Metrolink isn’t getting hit as hard as other transit agencies around the country. It certainly isn’t a situation like what’s happening at the OCTA, where bus service is going to be sent back to 1975 levels. The core Metrolink service will still be there, and the board, as dumb as they may be, aren’t necessarily making the wrong decision here.
If there’s anyone to blame, it’s the state, for most of our transit woes. That state transit fund cut hurt transit agencies, and it hurt badly. They are also getting hit hard by reduction in tax revenue and unemployment eats into ridership, especially on a white-collar rush hour train service like Metrolink.
[...] How is the Media Covering the Metrolink Fare Hike Debate? (Metro Rider) [...]
I have faithfully riden the Metrolink from Newhall to Burbank for the past four years. The Metrolink monthly pass cost $138 from Newhall to Burbank in 2005. Now it is $165 BEFORE the January 2010 fare increase. Factoring in the annual maintenance and fuel costs for my car, it costs 40% more to take the Metrolink. Most of that overage is wiped out by the tax savings on a transportation reimbursement account I keep and what I’m left paying for is the peace of mind of not sitting in traffic.
I’m willing to add an extra 30 minutes each way to drive to the Newhall Station then take a shuttle when I detrain in Burbank.
I do not agree with the post above that riders will grumble and keep riding because of their income level.
There is an Express bus to North Hollywood that stops a block away from my home and costs $2.50 each way. The bus may not have booths and tables, but truthfully, a lot of the amenities on the Metrolink are ruined by an understaffed train which looks the other way as mothers changes their baby’s diapers on the seats and vagrants camp out in the booths.
Finally, I was COMPLETELY offended by tone of their announcements to riders. Metrolink raises its rates every July. This year they waited until August. When all is said and done, and if they follow historical trends by raising fares in July 2010, then fares will have increased almost 15% in an two-year period.
I’m getting back in my car or carpooling with a friend.
Don’t forget that sometime in late 2010, free transfers will be suspended on Metrolink and a separate monthly pass will have to be purchased to ride MTA services (when TAP is fully implemented). Yet another hidden fare increase.
There are many options for express bus riders along the corridor, some of which, when you factor in the transfer at Union Station, are just as fast or faster than the train (although more unreliable). For example, Foothill Transit Line 497, 498, 499, and 699 from the San Gabriel Valley, LADOT 419 to Chatsworth, MTA 460 and OCTA 721 from Norwalk and Orange County, and Santa Clarita 757 to North Hollywood and 799 to Downtown Los Angeles.
“Don’t forget that sometime in late 2010, free transfers will be suspended on Metrolink and a separate monthly pass will have to be purchased to ride MTA services”
Unless something has changed in the past few months, they won’t be suspended for monthly and 10-trip passholders. In fact, Metrolink was thinking about handing out free TAP cards to passholders at the more popular stations.