Metro riders will have to keep a little more change handy in the new year. King County Metro Transit is increasing fares starting in January 2011.
Beginning Jan. 1, all adult Metro riders will see a 25 cent fare increase. Fares for other Metro products, such as passes and ticketbooks, will also increase. Youth fares will remain unchanged.
Fares will also be changing for Access customers. Access fares will increase by 25 cents and monthly passes will cost $45.
Metro-only annual and monthly reduced fare passes will no longer be sold, though existing ones will continue to be honored until they expire.
Check here for more information about upcoming Metro fare adjustments.
$2.25 to ride a bus… what a stupid system
pretty soon it will be cheaper to drive/park downtown.
and to think its’ still not paying for itself.
Public transport isn’t designed to directly ‘pay for itself’. You’ll be hard-pressed to find a city that operates otherwise.
The benefit of subsidizing cheap mass transit is a decreased need for variety of more expensive things (more roads, parking) and increased quality of life (denser living, less time sitting alone in a car on the freeway on your daily traffic jam to and from the suburbs), and so on.
Isn’t it true that when a business wants more customers or to compete, it lowers it’s prices. I realize our wonderful government isn’t a business but, realities are realities, although common sense doesn’t apply and government never goes without. I believe metro always operates in the red.
This will just mean more condos in Ballard!
Gotta pay those fat salaries , benefits and cushy retirement plans for the drivers!
Do you think driving alone pays for itself?
Single car drivers are far more subsidized than Bus riders. We’d probably be a lot better of if we were all forced to pay the full price of our transportation choices.
Your point is? Do you really think you fully pay out of your own pocket enough to cover the costs of driving your car? You’re a fool if you think you do. What you pay in gas taxes, sales taxes, licensing fees, etc. doesn’t come close to fully covering the costs of driving. The reason gas is so cheap in the US (about 1/3 – 1/4 what it costs in most other countries) is because we subsidize car ownership. Your driving is FAR more subsidized than the bus.
BTW, stop and think for one tiny second what it would look like if we didn’t have public transit. Instead of 50 people packed onto a single bus you’d have 50 cars sitting in front of you. Do you really think that would be better???
We need more quantitative easing from the Fed to stop this out-of-control deflation!
Welfare, run on diesel…..
Not if you factor in $2/hour parking, gas, cost of car, insurance, maintenance, etc. and parking rates are about to go up. dramatically.
Very good point and it is true. The flipside of it is that car culture is a big part of our economy. Car manufacturing and all it’s associated industries are a big chunk of the economy and a big driver of growth through the second half of the last century.
Geographically we are vehicle dependent in this country, although a lot of that is because of the subsidized car, so as much as I loves me some mass transit, bashing the car isn’t the way to improve it.
When libertarians and republicans scream about wasteful spending (ie all spending that doesn’t go to them) they manage to get a lot of people to go along and make tax cuts and service cuts despite the increased long term costs. We now have to live with the results.
Yeah, those buses cost more than a Mercedes S-class so I guess you can make the argument that these guys are driving the most expensive vehicles on the block, but that doesn’t mean that they’re rich.
WRONG. Other countries pile taxes on a litre of gas the way that alcohol and cigarettes are taxed in the US. When those gas taxes are taken off the price is less than the US driver pays.
Metro drivers are the 3rd highest paid in the US after only Boston and San Jose. If you want to know where your service is going, blame the waste at Metro.
How much money does Metro lose from all the crack heads riding for free downtown?
Depends how much you earn…if you make $80-90K + a year, is sitting in traffic for an extra hour a day on a bus worth your time?
Depends how much you earn…if you make $80-90K + a year, is sitting in traffic for an extra hour a day on a bus worth your time?
I gotta agree, much better if driving where made too expensive for the middle, lower middle and working classes.
I gotta agree, much better if driving where made too expensive for the middle, lower middle and working classes.
I have run into a few real trouble makers downtown in the free ride zone. However, I don’t see how they cost Metro any money. Removing them from the buses would remove a nuisance for drivers and passengers, but it would not save Metro any money. Metro could undoubtedly rake in more by abolishing the free ride zone, then everyone would have to pay before entering and sitting down. I don’t advocate that because I favor subsidies for low income people, and cheap bus transport is a godsend for the poor. Trouble makers are a price we pay, and, I for one wouldn’t cut the the malefactors any slack at all. They need to be put in the stocks at Westlake Mall so people can jeer at them and pelt them with garbage.
SO not true on the cushy retirement plans. Promise. And when up to 40% on some routes don’t pay the fare, what do you expect? Of course fares are going to go up.