Comments

1
The monthly pass fare hike from $77(?) to $100 is what's stunning to me.

That's a 23% hike for reduced service, for reduced expediency, and for a more crowded, stressful trip overall. There is absolutely no rationality or decency in this.

If you are healthy and you can afford it, get a bike, and get one now. Get some decent rain gear, get some wool socks, and stick it to trimet all winter long. It will pay for itself by next spring if you shop smart. You will be in much better shape, you'll be less stressed out, and you'll be sending a message to Tri-met that they can't solve all their mis-management problems on the backs of the poor and middle class.

There are alternatives out there. You don't just have to meekly hand over your debit card or $100 bill and shake your head as you bear down on another month of depressing Trimet commuting.

2
"Why Pay More 4 Less?"

Because most of their ridership has no alternative and they know it.
3
So a kid yelled "Fuck the $5 day pass!" I assume he then exclaimed "I'll skate to the beach! And I'll look better doing it!"
4
Why is he yelling about the day pass? The price of that isn't going up.
5
More reason to bike around
6
Charging for parking spaces at the park and ride is one of the dumber ideas you'll hear.

How much would shutting down WES? No one uses that.
7
Man, if i hadn't been at work and knew about this in advance, i sooo would've been to this!!!

It's bullshit that while dramatically increasing fares, Trimet [apparently] can't at least maintain service! And the WAY they've gone about HOW they now allow some passes to be paid for is kind of fucked up too.

I typically by 7-day passes (when not in school), if i know i'm going to have to be somewhere at least 6 days a week. The way that used to work was i could buy a weekly pass at Fred-Meyers, Safeway, or Whole Foods. So a place had always been really close by - walking distance. And b/c these were scratch-off cards, i could start using them whenever i damn-well needed to (in other words, i could buy a pass on Tues. but i could wait until Fri. for example to use it... b/c i might still be riding on a pass that was good until then).

But the way Trimet does this shit now is, scratch-off cards are no-longer available... only those 'validation' cards. But NOW i can only get them at a ticket booth or Pioneer square. And the cards are valid the very moment i buy them! And since i don't live any fucking where near walking distance of a MAX station or downtown, getting a pass now means having to pay $2.50 to get somewhere, JUST so i can get a (now $24) pass!!! Either that, or run on a pass that's been expired by a day so that i can at least get the FULL VALUE of what i'm about to pay for. Sometimes the driver doesn't notice, sometimes they do.

I cannot see a reason why Trimet can't still let people buy weekly passes at CONVENIENT locations and allow them to be validated when a person actually NEEDS them! What is the "cost-saving" measure in this!?
8
WHAT IS A "BUDGE HOLD"??? I must know.
9
I sympathize with the people who need Trimet and need it to stay affordable, but I don't get this "TRIMET IS GREEDY AND EVIL" crowd.

Trimet's caught in a classic spiral - without help from outside the system (e.g. taxes in some form), they have to keep cutting service and raising prices, driving down ridership and making the revenue problem worse. If they don't get the money from taxes or from riders, they go bankrupt. That's the whole problem, right?
10
I can't understand why Trimet doesn't actually have a system for the Lightrail and MAX that actually *requires* riders to pay before they get on. Every person in this city can count how many times they've taken free rides, and the sad truth is, even if there does happen to be an "undercover fare inspector" on board, they're just profiling people and you're still unlikely to be caught. You don't hop the bus without paying, why don't they have the same standards for the trains?

I've never been to another major city that makes it so ridiculously easy to avoid paying. Seems like the money they'd recoup from everybody paying a fare would pay for the cost of implementing turnstiles and/or employees at each station.
11
jriley - I've done the math on their recent increase in enforcement:

Based on the 2009 salary numbers (Salary/benefits only - does not include future cost of health insurance/pension) for fare inspectors, Trimet spent $654,468.09 on enforcement.

Based on the figures they released in August, they made $327,017 in revenue from tickets.

327,017 - 654.468 = -$327,451

In other words, the entire plan could be revenue negative, unless people are so scared to ride without tickets that they've started buying them.

Using a 2-hour all-zone fare, 53,387 people who would not have bought a pass at 2010 levels of enforcement have to buy a pass now.

Enforcement isn't really the answer here. The problem, as @Colin says, is that Trimet has an unstable funding source (payroll taxes). If Trimet's funding was based on property taxes, they would have a more accurate way to project future revenues. Tying it to property tax also makes more sense to me, because public transit is an essential service that benefits *everyone* in the community--riders and non-riders alike.
12
The blood sucking executives have fooled most of the public in the standard "its the employees that are dragging us down'
Of course this is a complete lie but the ignorant public eats it up.
Trimet is a bloated blood sucking agency, over extended, way over their heads, and they expect everybody but the executive class to pay for it;
http://rantingsofatrimetbusdriver.blogspot…

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