Just three months after taking the city's legislative representatives hostage, SEPTA is again announcing another round of fare increases, again, despite the $150,000,000 bail out it got from the state.
Background - they got that payment due to the hard work of political reps who would have been publically horsewhipped had they allowed SEPTA to do away with its paper transfers, which make navigating Philly to get from many low-income areas of the city to those areas that, you know, HAVE JOBS. No paper transfer = no get to work. How this helps the city, I have no idea. Luckily, they fixed the situation with a nice fat extortion payment. Then SEPTA announced the death of transfers anyway. It took a court order to keep transfers in use.
Now SEPTA's back, with this genius plan: "The latest proposal would increase the price of a token to $1.45 from the current $1.30 and the price of a transfer to 75 cents from the current 60 cents. The cash fare would remain $2 - one of the nation's highest." (thanks Inqy - link fuction still broken)
Now, SEPTA counters complaints that the working folks who rely on daily SEPTA transit should buy monthly passes. At about $80 a pop, that's just not realistic for many low-income families and individuals who live week-to-week budgetwise. It's also not sensible for someone who works several part-time jobs in different locations, some of which may be accessible by walking.
SEPTA is averse to raising fares for regional travel, since they squeezed those folks a few months ago with the initial fare increase. SEPTA is simply wrong. The riders' burden must be borne by those with the most capacity, and those are the regional riders.
Failing that, how about a plan similar to CHIP? Make monthly transpasses available at no cost or a discount for people based on income. They'd have to figure out a way to avoid folks selling their transpasses for stuff like, well, food. It can't be an impossibility. Implement that and I'd be happy to pay an extra $5 a month for my transpass. $10 extra if they use the extra Lincoln to mop the floors more than once a decade.
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For some reason, I really enjoy hearing people bitch about public transportation systems.
WMATA had a nice response to the rampant problem with DC's Metro riders selling their MetroChek passes: Metro gives you the X dollars a month, but they deliver it directly to your personal stored-value SmarTrip card. So if you sell your SmarTrip, all future benefits would go to the SmarTrip you just sold as well. Problem solved.
The catch there is that SEPTA doesn't have that, IIRC. Nor is it urgent for them to get it, since their fares don't vary with distance.
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