Most transfers across multiple transit agencies would be heavily discounted or even free under a new pilot project Bay Area public transit officials are currently considering.
The “free transfer” project would allow riders who transfer between two or more transit agencies to only pay the full fare for the first transit agency they use.
If the project is ultimately approved by regional transit officials, transfers from BART to the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority, for example, would be discounted up to $2.50, as long as the transfer is made within two hours of paying a BART fare.
According to BART financial planning director Michael Eiseman, regional transit officials hope to have the pilot project launch in tandem with the next-generation Clipper system in summer 2024, with the intention of eventually making free and reduced transfers a permanent policy across the Bay Area.
“The proposed policy is, in principle, that the act of transferring between agencies should not increase the overall fare paid,” Eiseman said Monday at a committee meeting for the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. “Customers can use all of (the Bay Area’s) services as one system.”
The pilot project would last at least 18 months and make use of some $22 million that the MTC has set aside for efforts to streamline usage of the Bay Area’s myriad transit agencies. The MTC would allocate funding up-front to participating transit agencies to offset the loss in fare revenue.
The pilot could also be extended up to two years if there is funding left over or if new funds become available, according to William Bacon, MTC’s principal of transit programs.
“We’ll be closely monitoring how the pilot is working in terms of growing ridership being our overall most important goal,” Bacon said. “And then secondarily to that, encouraging users to transfer between agencies and making more trips on transit than they might be making under the status quo.”
Making transfers across transit agencies free or reduced cost is part of a larger plan developed in 2020 by the MTC’s Blue Ribbon Transit Recovery Task Force that is intended to unify the wayfinding, mapping and fare systems across the Bay Area’s public transit agencies.
The MTC is already seeking prototypes for new transit maps and signage that would include integrated schedule information for multiple transit agencies.
A two-year pilot program is also ongoing for a single transit pass that is compatible with every public transit agency in the region.
The MTC must still approve a memorandum of understanding for the free and reduced fare project for it to be formally implemented. Individual transit agencies must also approve the memorandum, according to the MTC.
14 comments
Margaret Thatcher once said that “The trouble with Socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.”
yep
One calculation I’ve never seen is how much it really cost to get a person from one point to another. Is it costing $100 or more to get a person from Pittsburgh to San Francisco every trip? What is the real cost per passenger?
They simply refuse to address the real problems with BART: Crime and Contamination.
This project addresses neither. A fair discount will not attract legitimate riders until they address the former. This isn’t brain surgery.
800 billion for reparations for blacks in a state that never had slavery. 🤡🌎. Taxpayers are so screwed in CA. This can’t happen.
Sam, I’ve missed you where you been? I haven’t had a good laugh in a long time
I don’t understand how they expect us to afford that. My bad
I need it explained to me like I’m 8 years old, and I’ll have a lot of questions.
Formally or by Law Ca was a free State, but….
Reparations is nothing more than latest DEM ploy to get the black vote in 2024.
DEMs are counting on black voters being dumb enough to believe they’ll get free money. Is just like student loan forgiveness, hard to believe college educated people could be stupid enough to believe that would ever happen. Courts will strike both cons down.
Yep. They will vote dem just for the fact they are “trying” to give them money. It will never happen in a million years but boy will the low info and ignorant people rumor like crazy about it. They will probably guilt each other if they even try to make sense. As with COVID, it’s all psychological warfare. Republicans may not do very much, but democrats constantly take advantage of poor and low self esteem people. Sad that it still works.
Use the $22M to secure the systems. Only paying passengers get in or near the system. It will improve overnight.
I don’t care if BART is 100% free. There’s still no way I’m going to ride on it.
It’ll only work if BART collects the lions share of the fares. If they’re in a position where they are ones providing free or discounted fares, they’ll cry foul so fast your head will spin.
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