Flickr Photo Courtesy Redpopjp
After reading Larry Lebowitz’s article in The Miami Herald yesterday, I decided to take a look around the nation at transit fares.
Here, for your edification (and, hopefully, action), I compare what our fares here in Miami-Dade County would look like after enactment of our commission-proposed fare hike, versus fares of some other transit agencies around the country. The purpose of this is to get those of you out there who are reading this, and who are so inclined, to speak up – let your County Commissioner know that you won’t stand for a fare increase of the likes they are proposing.
While I researched nine transit systems, I am only posting here the top five of those I researched.
My list is arranged in order, from most expensive monthly pass to cheapest monthly pass:
- Miami-Dade Transit Agency – Miami-Dade County, FL
As I mentioned yesterday, MDTA’s proposed $2.00 one-ride fares, and $100 monthly pass, rank us as one of the top, if not the top, in the nation. For this price, one can ride their choice of one rail line 22.4 miles, or any of 100 bus routes along their 923 route-miles.
If you need to change from bus-to-train, or from bus-to-bus, you’ll have to pay $0.50 each time you transfer.
- New York City Metropolitan Transit Authority – New York, NY
If you’re travelling on public transit in New York City, you can get an all-you-can-ride MetroCard for $81.00, or pay the $2.00 one-ride fare. For this price, you can ride any of 26 subway lines over 1,000 route-miles, or any of 243 bus routes almost 4,000 route-miles.
Oh… and if your trip on NYC’s MTA takes you from bus-to-train or train-to-bus? Your transfer is free…
- Chicago Transit Authority – Chicago, IL
In Chicago, they have eight rail lines running 222 route-miles, and 154 bus lines running 2,273 route miles. The monthly cost to ride any or all of it? $75.00. Single-ride fares are $1.75 and transfers are $0.25.
- Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transit Authority – Los Angeles, CA
L.A. has five rail lines that run 73.1 miles, and 191 bus routes that cover 1,332 route miles. It costs $70 per month to ride all of that; $1.25 per ride if you’re going to pay for a single ride.
- Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority – Boston, MA
With MBTA’s $59 LinkPass, one can ride 9 rail lines for 64 miles, and 183 bus routes 751 route-miles. Single fare is $2.00, transfers are free.
My points to the County Commission and MDTA are the following:
- Don’t fix the failure of County management to appropriately manage this agency by putting the burden solely on the backs of the commuters that use the system. Doing that is not going to fix the problem. It may provide a finger-in-the-dike solution that balances the current budget; but I guarantee you that a $100 MetroPass is going to drive users away. Especially when you can see from above that other transit systems deliver more for less.
- Find a way to work with the electorate and establish a solid funding source to fund transit.
- Take a long and hard look at area populations, and get out there and survey residents (door-to-door, if necessary) before you put a route on the books. As a former rider of Route 344 in Florida City and Homestead, and as a recent rider of the now-defunct Route 82, I can tell you that it appears that little thought went into the alignment of these routes before they were implemented. Surveying residents of areas on what their transit needs are, combined with GIS analysis of where they go and for what would help with developing useful routes.
- Transit, like education, is something that everyone benefits from, even if they don’t directly use it. While I do support reasonable user fees, transit will never operate at a profit, nor can it be expected to break even from farebox revenue. A $2.00 single-ride fare, with no cost to transfer is a reasonable fare. However, $100 for an all-you-can-ride MetroPass is not. If you (commissioners) implement the fare hike for passes, expect them to sit on the shelves after you print them.
I love your blog and the information. However I have to call you on the NYC comparison. I am from NYC, currently living in Ft. Lauderdale. When I was home (NYC) last month, I heard some things from Bloomberg. Namely the city doesn’t have money to give the transit what it needs and that they either have to pass a congestion tax (which Bloomberg tried to pass and the Governor shot down) or raise fares. So, while it is 81 dollar for monthly travel in NYC, it can not remain so.
Maybe Miami should pass a congestion tax to get into downtown and use that money to fund mass transit in Miami.
Wild Style, thanks for the comment! Fare hikes are actually under consideration (or have been) in a few of the cities that I picked for comparison, and I admit that comparison of a proposed fare to current fares isn’t quite apples-to-apples. I was using hyperbole to make a point that raising our transit fares to the highest in the nation is only a temporary solution to a systemic problem. It also represents, I believe, bad policy to place the burden of “fixing the glitch” totally on the backs of MDT’s commuters, most of whom aren’t at fault for the department’s shortcomings.
I think transit systems nationwide are feeling the pinch, with Diesel fuel hovering near $5.00 per gallon, and many transit systems using millions of gallons of the stuff to move their fleets. I suspect it won’t be long before systems across the land look for ways to either convert to more efficient fleets in their capital plans, or look to dump Diesel altogether, like Los Angeles has on many vehicles in its fleet.
As far as a congestion tax, as has been indicated here previously, the logistics of that might be a bit tricky to implement, but it is shot in the right direction. The problem with our tri-county area is that we have work centers all over, so traffic moves through many of our downtown areas, and not TO those areas.
One thing that is coming to Miami-Dade and Broward Counties, and perhaps in the future to Palm Beach, is 95 Express, which will use congestion-based tolling in the express/carpool lanes in order to expedite traffic that chooses to pay the toll. I’m not quite certain this would be as effective as the congestion tax would be in New York, but we definitely need to be looking at all options here.
I am sure folks familiar with other systems could quibble as well, but I have to point out that in Chicago, if you switch at the right El station, you can cover a phenomenal distance for that $1.75 and avoid the transfer. Another thing that is missing is the mention of Metra. While the CTA and Metra have their turf wars, for under $5 or $6 between Metra (heavy suburban-oriented rail) and the CTA (primarily City of Chicago buses and light rail) you can roam throughout an area equivalent to Palm Beach, Broward, and Miami-Dade Counties combined. And do so on a system that runs much more often. You get so much more bang for your buck there than here, sad to say.
Cranking up the cost of public transit now is the wrong idea at the wrong time. Which is why it will fly here. In Miami, ask yourself what is the right thing to do for the community at large and what will put money in some crony’s pocket, and then you know what the end result will be. The public good loses every time…
I couldn’t agree with you more, Warmonger. Everytime the city or the county has the opportunity to do what’s right for the people they always turn their backs and do what’s right for the special interests. I only wish there was something we could do to bring about real change.
Sean
I was just having this conversation with someone. About how sprawled South Florida is. I am thinking of moving to Miami actually from Fort Lauderdale IF I can get a job down there. I like a lot of what they are doing more so than what Ft. Lauderdale is doing. Like the Miami 21 plan which is much like the PlaNYC. New Urbanism + transit = win in my opinion.
I don’t know how Miami can do it but, they need to some how entice big corporations to move downtown. That way, they can improve mass transit. I think with the real estate “mishap”, gas prices and price dropping in real estate people are going to move closer to the core of the city. That will also help mass transit.
As for the mismanagement, I agree 100%, Miami needs to tighten up on that. Miami has come a long way but it still has a LONG way to go. I like what the commissioner said in that other post you made. I think maybe Miami should look at the 595 model FDOT has. Let private plan it out, maintain it etc. but the state government runs the show.
dieselboy,
You are spot on. Governments rarely if ever act in the interests of the people they claim to serve. They are tied up in serving the economic elites, and prove that at every juncture. In other cities people have been able to fight fare hikes and push for more sustainable transit (not to mention workplaces and housing) through organizing and taking direct action. We can all see what uncountable years of lobbying has yielded. We have to build the world we want to see, not wait around for others to do it for us.
For some examples:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fare_strike
Tomas,
We in America are to self centered to properly make a stand like that against corrupt politicians. I hope one day we can do like the French citizens but I have little hope
Miami leads the nation in a rude and self-centered BUT we need to learn to band together as they have in Cities like Portland and to demand accountability from our public officials. Los Angeles is far more “sprawled out” than Miami and they have adopted bike lanes and a light rail system in the last 10-20 years, not because politicans thought it would be a good idea but because the lower income citizenry asked for it. We cannot expect a quick fix for the mess that is Miami-Dade County, but that is no reason to feel hopeless for the future. That’s where the Internet [via websites like Transitmiami] can help us band together as a community and say “Ok, tell your friends/ family/coworkers to attend this meeting at city/county hall and speak about [fill in the blank] and/or send e-mails to elected officials and specific agencies about your complaints or compliments.” Citizens in progressive thinking cities like Seattle and Portland and Cambridge have gotten deeply involved in the political and legislative and governmental processes and it has worked for them. This weekend I will be devoting a few hours to stand outside the Hotel Intercontinental in Miami with a homemade sign advocating bicycle rights because the US Conference of Mayors is meeting there and they will be looking at adopting a bicycle resolution. Maybe one of Barak Obama’s staff may see me and whisper in his ear about someone in Miami advocating for bike rights, it can’t hurt, right? You may never know who will see your actions or read your e-mails and act on them, but we have to do something. It’s not going to be easy because we are so self-centered and insular. If we want a better city, county and community, it is up to us as individual citizens to bring our single voices into a collective roar, to become pro-active, educate ourselves and recruit others who are sick and tired of the same old lies and corruption and to demand change. Perhaps there could be a forum area on this website or another with “Action Alert” notification for items we would like to have our ideas heard. I am a recent convert to public transit and bicycle awareness and would never have known so much but for this very website and now I talk it up to everyone I know ad nauseum because gas prices are only going to worsen. Everyone I know has in some way changed how/when they drive due to gas prices in the last year. Perhaps a germ of an idea here will sprout into something more, people from outside South Florida read this blog and maybe can give us direction, but again, it has to start somewhere…why not here? To shamelessy steal from “Field of Dreams”, “If you build it, they will come.”
The problem with planning any rapid transit routes in this County is the politics that drives route prioritization. If you were to ask an independant planner to tell you what 20 miles of rail would give Miami-Dade County the best return on investment (ridership, fare box recovery, destination based, etc…) 2 of the 3 corridors being proposed (North and E-W) would not even be in the top 5.
The powers that be are confined by politics and a small minority of either NIMBYs or “You Owe Me”s.
Y’all make good points above. I’d only add that even a small group of people who get organized can make a big change. People just feel isolated, and are looking for solutions. If we get out into the community as an organized force, people can rally around common solutions. We just need to build a democratic organization run by the riders and workers that can press our needs without getting corrupted and derailed by the bureaucrats in the unions, political machinery, and non-profits. We have the power ultimately. If the riders won’t cooperate with the way they want it to run, and the workers use their power to leverage gains, the politicians will have to listen. Just see what happens when transit workers refuse to take fares, and riders refuse to pay, politicians start capitulating to transit improvements quickly so that things don’t get out of their control. Our job is to build that transit workers’ alliance.
sidenote: Portland isn’t as great as it may seem. It is more expensive to ride than in Miami, and fares are raised frequently (often in months not years). Moreover trimet frequently slashes services where the ridership is the greatest (working class communities) while subsidizing business interests in shopping districts, and where wealthy businessmen congregate.
Despite all the liberal politics of the city, most of that is relegated to voting and other symbolic activities that don’t challenge decisions like this (and let’s face it, most liberals are not concerned with the livelihood of working families). Portland is less spread out than Miami so luckily you can bike when the weather isn’t miserable, but the reality is that that still makes up a rather small section of the population as the planning pushes most out to the suburbs, and reserves the urban center for the wealthy. This is the problem with letting politicians decide this issues for us, the lines are drawn based on class. Unless we take action to defend our interests, the government (liberal or not) will defend the interests of business.
Alas, as a former transit rider, now living downtown (and occasionally availing of free metro-mover rides) I feel that Non-Transit users like myself are paying a disproportionate share to support transit…which is OK, because I voted for the PTP half penny, but I did so with the promise that our Metrorail and bus systems would be expanded, not to clean up the mess of past mismanagement, and for damn sure not to fund various road projects, pay raises for Senior Transit employees, or to throw pork to Miami-Dade’s municipalities.
The transit fare increase is a necessary first step to clean up the mess, and put our transit system on firm financial footing. Without the fare increase, There is no chance of expanding the system, therefore I would be in favor of repealing the PTP.
Should the fare increase move forward, then the real work of reforming the PTP can begin, but the next step is the fare increase.
Without it, we go backward, not forward.
with $2 fares, I’d rather stay home!